


Kids From Yesterday

by orphan_account



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Eden Prime, F/M, M!Shep, Multi, Renegade!Shepard - Freeform, Therum
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-09
Updated: 2012-05-18
Packaged: 2017-11-05 01:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/401062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>ON HOLD UNTIL FANFICTION.NET DECIDE THAT I'M WORTHY ENOUGH TO GET MY OWN STORY BACK... they took it down for no aparrent reason...</b> A young Sergeant is recruited for a special mission through a Black Hole. Her CO's have painted Commander shepard as the enemy, but when he saves her from Eden Prime and her failed mission, will she realise they were playing her? That they were wrong?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Briefing

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this was originally posted on FF.Net but I decided to bring it over here because I quite like it. There are OC's from other Fics on FF.Net, credit is as follows; Ian Shaw belongs to INf3ctioNZ and Dead Echo belong to Thunderfury12124. Thankyee.

The girl closed the door to her apartment, taking little notice of the mail piled up in the basket beside her door. Her first action as she walked further into the house was not to call out to her mother, but to visit her computer.

She was only nineteen but in the four short years since she'd volunteered for the army a lot had changed. When she was fifteen she signed up, within a year they'd seen fit to promote her to Advanced Training in preparation for active service - something about not enough soldiers in the field. Her Commanding Officers found her to be highly proficient - sometimes surpassing her tutors - in both technological aptitude and combat ability; armed and hand-to-hand. By the time she was seventeen she was being shipped out for her first tour of duty. Apparently they could do that, with parental permission. All the girl knew was that she was glad to be out of training and getting a piece of the real action - training camps made her twitchy. During her first tour in Afghanistan, shortly after her eighteenth birthday - which had passed with raucous celebration at base camp - an IED exploded beside her.

She lost sight in her right eye, took some minor injuries to her right ear and sustained minor burning on her right arm. She was lucky, but the ass dropped out of her world when she was told she'd never serve again.

Shortly after she was all healed up, after expressing her desire to remain in the forces, she was transferred to Technical Services. Being a high scorer in all of the original assessment exams, it seemed the only viable option.

Sitting at her desk, reminiscing in the quiet of an empty house, the girl checked her messages.

Two related to business. After her accident she'd had a lot of spare time on her hands, so she decided to turn her talents to more undesirable pursuits. _Information Broker_ was a little too formal, she preferred _'Discoverer of Dirty Laundry'_. People asked her for dirt and she dished it, whether it be on a celebrity or on someone's next door neighbour - it was all business.

The third message was from her mother, informing her of a trip to America with her latest conquest. The e-mail was hasty, no doubt sent on the fly at the airport terminals, signing off by telling her that she would not be home to see her daughter before she left for base again. That suited the girl just fine.

The girl's phone buzzed in her kit bag, distracting her from her messages. She reached for it while opening a window of code and a System32 link, preparing to dig dirt. After rooting around in her kit bag one handed for a moment the girl pulled out her phone, grinning victoriously before hitting the answer key.

"Yeah?" she answered.

_"Sergeant Sparks?"_ a clear commanding voice filtered through the speaker of her iPhone.

The girl stiffened, "Who is this?"

_"My name is Admiral James. I'm calling to request your presence at a military briefing on new technology in Scotland, prior to field testing in active service by yourself and a group of operatives."_

Stunned, the sergeant took a moment to let the Admiral's words sink in. "I'm sorry sir, I don't know if you've been informed but my eyes jacked up so I've been removed from active duty." her voice was bitter as she spoke.

_"I understand you're not too happy about that, Sergeant. This is different, privately funded, off the grid."_

The girl bristled, bullshit sensors kicking into overdrive as she processed the Admiral's words. It seemed to be getting more surreal by the second. But she did want to be back in active service, then there was this technology - if that wasn't bullshit too. "What's so special about this technology?"

There was a pause before the Admiral spoke, _"I can see you're interested. Come to the base, we'll talk more when you get here. I'll send you an email with the place and time."_

The girl made to inform him that he didn't have her email address by she was met with the dial tone. A second later a small box appeared in the corner of her screen bearing the words _'1 New Message'_ with a cheery beep. She found herself cursing that beep, and the message box - and the admiral's ability to appeal to her inner soldier - as she opened the message to find some dreary place in southern Scotland was her 'target', for want of a better word. She glowered at the screen and readied herself for a long night followed by a long drive - 0800 was a ridiculous time for her to have to be in Scotland, she lived in Nottingham for Christ's sake.

***

The next morning the Sergeant awoke and dressed in her Army Fatigues before driving to the base, cursing her own curiosity the entire way - which was a **long** way. Arriving at the base, she was surprised to find it was fairly small with only a couple of hangars and very few personnel. Her sarcastic side begged her to make a witty comment about modesty but she refrained, she didn't need somebody seeing and thinking her insane, she had enough of that already. The lack of security at the main gate meant that the Sergeant drove straight into the base and parked up beside the designated hangar - number four - without incident. Climbing out of her car and walking up to the slightly ajar door, a bad feeling crept into her gut, like she was letting herself in for something big - and ridiculously dangerous. Normally she'd trust her instincts, they were the things that made sure she still had half of her head on her shoulders, but today she ignored them. Curiosity's a bitch, huh?

Arriving in the hangar she was met with thirteen curious pairs of eyes. A man wearing the dress uniform of an Admiral stepped up to her. She snapped to attention but didn't bother with a formal salute, after all, if this was Admiral James then he wasn't part of any military command anymore.

The Admiral addressed her, "And you are?"

"Sergeant Sparks, sir."

"As you were." the Admiral nodded to the girl - who stepped into a relaxed position with her hands clasped behind her back - taking in her appearance. She wore standard issue cargo's and shirt with her patches on her shoulders, her sleeves were rolled up past her elbows and the shirt was fastened half way down, revealing a White vest underneath. Her black hair was shaved short and her eyes were a mismatched green and blue, the pupil and the fringes of the iris of one of them a milky grey.

"You have your pack?"

The girl nodded, "It's in my car, sir."

The Admiral nodded before gesturing for the twelve people in the room, and the girl, to gather around two table set out behind the engines of a small jet.

"You may be wondering why I called all of you here personally." the Admiral didn't wait for anybody to respond, simply continued with his _'briefing'_ \- of sorts, "I have been tasked with forming the Cross-dimensional Operations Group. Also known as COG-"

The girl cut in, "Did you steal that from video game?"

"No." the girl wasn't convinced but the Admiral pressed on before she could question any further, "right now we have need of the most skilled personnel to form an Exploration and Retrieval Squad. Various organisations have discovered the location of a black hole and speculate that it leads to an _'Alternate Universe'_. A drone sent through returned pictures to prove this." the Admiral laid pictures of planets on the table, and vessels surrounding advanced looking space stations.

"The probe was destroyed but we retrieved some interesting data, then there's this." he placed an image of a... Spaceship? On the table. It was black, White and red with the word Normandy along the side - probably the name - and the letters SSV and SR1 along what looked like it's thrusters and forward arms. The ship was completely destroyed. Pieces appeared to be scattered around it, falling away, the entire midsection missing.

"Is that a... Spaceship?"

The question had been voiced by a member of the team Sparks didn't know, but it was the one all of them wanted the answer to.

"Yes..."

There was a slight pause as the people looking at the pictures took time to process the fact that there may be a black hole out there somewhere with an entire space-faring civilisation hidden inside, before somebody - once again - voiced the thought on everyone's lips, "Bullshit."

The Sergeant smiled, thinking exactly the same thing before looking back to the Admiral, "How do we know these aren't fake? How do we know that you're not going to send us off into the middle of nowhere, like complete fools, just to find nothing?"

"Trust me," the Admiral wore a knowing smirk, "they aren't fake. You'll see when we get to the main base of operation."

The girl sighed, more travelling.

"There is one more thing, I do believe this is your area of expertise Sergeant Sparks, we recovered technology from this ship. Technology that could advance our society by decades, and you're going to field test it. There are weapons," he pulled out another file of photographs and began to lay them out on the table, "armour, strange computing devices, what appear to be some kind of cybernetic implants. We have some of this technology in the pipeline but it's years, if not decades, away from completion. All of this is fully functional and ready to use, so the thirteen of you are going to be putting it through its paces on your mission."

The Sergeant's eyes widened, mind boggling as she took in all of this information. "Is this technology replicable? Can we use it?"

The Admiral nodded.

"So why do you need me?"

The Admiral let out a low chuckle, smoothing a crease out of his dress blues before turning back to the girl, "Everyone has a reason to be here, a specific set of skill. Your Technological Aptitude tests read off the charts, I'd have a difficult time finding someone more suited to this job than you. As for everyone else, they all have their skills and will, no doubt, be introduced at some point."

The girl nodded, trying to push down the feeling of impatience in her gut as she thought about all of these new toys she'd get to play with soon. She found herself wondering about the computing device the Admiral mentioned, trying to figure out exactly what it would be like in her head. Though one question still bugged her, but before she could have the chance to ask it, someone else did.

The man stood beside her; tattoo's covering his bare arms and scalp, wearing German army cargos that looked thoroughly worn and a black World War Two German officer's coat over a plain black tee-shirt, butted into the briefing after being silent for the previous twenty minutes, "So is everyone here in active service?"

His voice had a slight German tint to it and Sparks found herself wondering exactly why he was here, what his particular skills were. It seemed strange that they would have a German army officer in their team, unless he was in command, which she highly doubted - for some reason people were **still** sore about the Second World War sixty five years on.

The Admiral nodded an affirmative to his question and the German grinned, "Sweet, I get to kill shit."

The girl simply laughed as the Admiral ordered them to move out, a small smile on his face. The group trooped into the jet behind them, as directed, and were surprised to find it luxuriant - opulent even. There were many exclamation as they all found seats, some cruder than others.

"Public Sector comfort, by design..." Sparks heard someone mutter from behind her. Before she could fully comprehend that statement her thought process was interrupted - god she felt like a robot - by a voice to her side.

"So, Sparkey..."

The Sergeant's head turned to see the man dressed like a German stood at the end of her row of seats. He slid into the one on the end, getting comfortable before turning to face her.

" _Sparkey?_ " she asked, taking in the tattoo's of wings stretching around to his temples.

The German, as she was now calling him in her head, grinned, "Your name's Sparks. It's logical."

"I see." the girl's manner was reserved, she didn't know whether to burst out laughing or cry like a child.

"So, how old are you?" the German asked, he appeared to be watching her carefully.

"Nineteen." the girl said no more than she had to, the last thing she needed to do was form more attachments. She learned her lesson with that on her first deployment in the desert.

"Really? Wow, that's bad. So, what's your story? To be here that young it must be pretty spectacular..." he took in the milky colours of her right eye, the rip in the cartilage of her right ear, the scars on her right arm, and began to speculate.

"I signed up with the forces when I was fifteen." the girl sighed, grinning slightly as she thought back, "they put me through advanced training early, I was out in active service when I was seventeen. They dropped me on a Delta squad out in Afghanistan, the guys took me in and made me feel welcome. Gave me little tips on surviving, fixing up my weapon, what to do and what not to do, you know the stuff. Anyway, we were sent out on a routine patrol, we'd been walking it a couple nights and the guys in front were getting complacent. One night, a couple days after my eighteenth birthday - we were due to ship back in around a month - the scout didn't do his job properly and as IED blew up in my face."

The girl paused as the memories came rushing back; the smoke, the blood pouring into her mouth, the screams of pain that weren't all her own.

She cleared her throat and carried on, "A piece of shrapnel took my eye - blinded me - and sliced my ear, the resulting fire burnt my arm. I was lucky... the bomb vaporised two of my closest friends, severely injured two more. In the end only two of us made it home alive. When I got home, they told me I could never serve again." she sighed before adding, with a sad smile, "although I can't see why, I'm a lefty," she wiggled her left arm in the air, "but I guess they didn’t care."

"Man... that sucks..." the German simply couldn't think of any other words to express just how bad that situation **actually** was. Compared to this kid, he fell in shit and came out smelling of roses.

"You know the worst thing. The only other guy to survive was the scout, and it was his fucking fault in the first place." there was a grim humour in her voice as she thought this over, remembering her scout and the look on his face when he realised he'd got his entire squad killed.

"But anyway," the girl swiped her hand across her face in an attempt to prevent the tears that had been threatening to fall from forming, "enough about me, what about you? I don't even know your name?"

The German smiled, "I guess you could say I'm a Criminal, though it depends where you see the boundaries of the law. I'm a sneaky bastard, that's why this lot got me. I was on the way to lockup when this Admiral pops up and says _'hey, you crazy motherfucker, I'll get you out of jail if you'll work for me no question's asked.'_ so I agreed."

The girl looked at him, scepticism in her eyes.

"Okay, he didn't say it exactly like that, but the point's what counts. So I got shipped from Germany, to here, and now I'm being shipped god knows where again. But at least they got rid of the handcuffs." he rubbed his wrists subconsciously before grinning.

"You are one **crazy** motherfucker, but I _think_ it's in a good way." the girl laughed.

"My name's Kurt, by the way."

"Kurt, huh? Hi... I guess. I'm Juno."


	2. Icarus

By the time the plane ride was over Sergeant Juno Sparks was fast approaching Stir Crazy. She'd never been good with sitting still and doing nothing for long periods of time, plane rides were always the worst. As she walked down the stairs from the jet she breathed deep, enjoying the clear air of the hangar - though she would probably need to go outside at some point. It smelled cold, clean. Like fresh snow.

Kurt followed her down the steps, at her heel like a faithful Doberman - or German Shepard, depending on how you looked at it. She smiled as she imagined the tough German, with his tattoo's and cargos, big puppy dog eyes staring out from heavy lids and tufty ears sticking up from his shaved scalp. That was a funny image. Her mental joking ceased as she spotted the Admiral walking ahead of them, she picked up her pace to walk beside them and Kurt dropped back to talk to some of the other members of the group.

"Sir, you mentioned something about retrieval?"

The Admiral stopped, turning to her, "Indeed I did. Briefing at 0300 hours - British time. You move out at 0400. Don't be late."

The Sergeant paused, staring after the Admiral as he walked away. _Briefing at 0300?_ She looked at her watch, her eyes wide as she saw the time was 2300 - she still hadn't changed her watch from the time in England, though the Admiral had said that briefing was at 0300 British time. There goes the chance that she could get extra sleep because of the time zone changes. _Four hours sleep? Well, this isn't exactly the same as Base out in Afghanistan at all._ Her thoughts stopped there, she had a feeling that the Admiral wouldn't accept sarcastic comments.

"Awh, man, this **sucks!** "

"I'd urge you to watch your tone." the Admiral called back to her, making her curse quietly to herself. Super-ears or what?

The Sergeant sighed and nodded before calling, "Yes, sir. Sorry, sir."

Following the rest of the team into the room they'd been assigned to bunk before briefing, she saw around eight cots, all with clinical white sheets that were folded with military precision. This place was confusing, was it military or was it civilian? Juno sighed and sat on one of the beds, looking up at the television which was turned onto Geneva National News. It made sense really, the epicentre for all scientific and technological advancements. What was more surprising was the content of the news report. Messages had been feeding in from America for the last five years about their _'disaster'_ although conspiracy theorists were calling something different entirely. The majority of the world saw it as what it was, a freak accident, the rest... let's just say there's some interesting rumours going around about government involvement, even after five years. 

_'In other news; today is the five year anniversary of what some people have started calling 'The American Plague'. Five years ago the majority of the American populace was decimated by what the government are calling a 'freak virus', which turned people into monsters - mutating their flesh and affecting their minds. The last survivor discovered uttered only one thing before committing suicide: 'They want our bodies'. There has been much speculation as to who 'they' are; some believe it is the government while others believe it refers to the monsters themselves. All that is clear about this disaster, even after this many years and intensive study, is that it's effect was absolute. The American President spoke to the remaining citizens of America who managed to escape overseas today, assuring them that the virus has been destroyed, and that America is safe once more...'_

The report cut to images of the Barack Obama, safe after fleeing to the UK, finally setting foot on American soil for the first time. He stepped up to a podium and began to talk to a small crowd, the only remaining Americans in the world - those who were away or lived on the coast and managed to escape.

 _'Disasters like this...'_ he spoke, looking out across the small group, _'...they have a way of strengthening bonds between people who survive. And you are the survivors. We have eradicated this virus, this 'Plague'. We have taken back our country from these mostrosities. We may be fewer, but we are stronger! With a small, dedicated team, anything is possible. Should these things return, we will **hold the line!** To protect our families, to protect our friends, to protect our culture, to protect our country... **we will hold the line!** Thankyou.'_

The news report cut back to the studio and went on to talk about the extermination of the Plague before moving onto something about it also being the anniversary of a kid called Ian going missing, but Juno wasn't really paying any attention. She was too busy thinking about this 'new world' she was about to experience; about all of the things she might see, all of the people she might meet, all of the things she might accomplish. Slowly, she drifted into much needed sleep.

***

A couple of hours later, the Sergeant cracked open a heavy eyelid to find the her watch read 0330. _Fuck!_

"Why didn't you wake me up?" she hissed to Kurt, careening into the room and sliding sideways, mid-sprint, into a chair on the end of the row that Kurt had evidently left open for her. If she wasn't so flustered because she overslept she might have considered her skid remotely funny, maybe even a little slick... but she didn't. Instead she quickly apologised for being late before turning to Kurt.

"What did I miss?" she hissed.

"Crazy shit, man. They've got broads with **tentacle heads!** " her German friend was grinning like a kid at christmas.

The Sergeant simply gave him a disbelieving glance before turning her eyes back to the Admiral, who stood at the front of the room tacking a picture to a whiteboard.

"Your main priority will be to locate the Conduit," he pointed to the picture of a large upright structure with lights flickering the entire length, around two thirds of the way down there was a glowing ball of blue light surrounded by two spinning rings, "you are to mark it for retrieval by another squad at a later date."

The Admiral reached for a file on the desk at the front of the room before pinning more pictures on the board, running a hand through his short, salt-and-pepper hair. "These guys..." he paused and pointed to a picture of a blonde haired human that looked around twenty and a reptilian creature with a bone-like carapace covering its face and clear blue, avian eyes, "they're to be avoided at all costs. The human, Ian Shaw, and his Turian-"

Juno shot yet another questioning glance at Kurt but his eyes were focused on the strange creature in the picture, and the Admiral's _'Public Enemy Number One'_ briefing.

"Sergeant?" the Admiral looked her way and she apologised quickly, her cheeks reddening as all eyes in the room turned to her.

The Admiral simply shook his head and continued, "As I was saying... Shaw and his Turian partner, Garrus Vakarian, are Citadel Security detectives. They'll cause you no end of trouble, so if you **have** to visit the Citadel, keep your noses clean and keep a watchful eye on them; they'll pin things on you that didn't even happen and before you know it you'll be up to your ass in Crime Tape and Politics. Trouble follows these two around. Officially, they investigate the Black Market trade on the Wards but they've got fingers - and talons - into everything. Their most notable exploit was blowing up a spaceport... and an Elcor Ambassador. Messy business, steer clear."

The Sergeant took in the image of the detective - Shaw - and his partner. He had mid to long blonde hair that gave him a smart-yet-scruffy look, he wore a plain white tee-shirt and a pair of blue-ish-black cargo's with a pistol strapped to his hip. His partner - Vakarian - was taking some time to process. Sparks couldn't even believe her eyes quite yet, she couldn't distinguish a gender due to there being no discernible facial features that hinted the either male or female, she couldn't even process it's existance... yet there it stood, in all it's reptilian glory - so to speak. It's avian eyes were unnerving, almost as much as the rifle slung across it's chest or the pistol on it's hip.

The Admiral pointed to a second picture he had pinned up while Juno was studying the Turian, and he was about to speak when Sparks interrupted.

"Sir?"

"Yes?"

He sounded irritated, which made her building laughter even harder to hold in.

"A small question of gender, sir." she pointed to Vakarian, "He? She? It? I can't figure it out."

Kurt busted into a fit of laughter beside her, struggling to hold it in as the Admiral's sharp blue eyes swept over them both. He sighed, exasperated.

"Vakarian is Male, Sergeant. Now... may I continue?"

Sparks let out an involuntary snigger, not surprised by the revelation that the Turian was male - the **blue** face paint should have given it away - before clearing her throat and addressing the Admiral. "Yes, sir. Sorry, sir."

The Admiral pinched the bridge of his nose and nodded, muttering to himself about the problems with employing children before turning to the newest images, "Dead Echo. They are a mercenary band that usually operates from Omega, a mined out Asteroid populated by criminal, vagrants, extortionists and other unsavoury. Their leader, Thunder, has a fearsome reputation for being efficient but merciful. Not much else is known about the seven but their alias': Thunder, the guy that glues them all together; Ajax, this guy values his shotgun more than anything, never get too close; Ghost, he's a sharpshooter, keep him close; Flynn, not much is really know about him but our best guess is he's a support member, not too vital to the machine; Ricardo, he's the black sheep, their main weakness; Necro, he loves to kill things, he's rarely found without blood on his hands unless they're taking down-time - which is rare - and lastly Ninja, he's an expert at being invisible, never let him out of your sight or you'll never find him..."

Juno watched as he pointed to each of them in turn and tried to memorise their armour, they all had different colours and there was no feature that identified them as being part of the same squad. Thunder's armour was jet black with orange vertical patterning along his arms and down his sides, Ajax's was similar but black and red with smaller patterning and thinner lines, Ghost had what appeared to be green digital camouflage, Flynn's armour was a simple blue and grey with the colour alternating across panels meaning he had a blue chest and grey arms and legs, Ricardo's armour was a plain white with pale blue accents, Necro's armour was blue and yellow with bloodstains - that appeared to be authentic rather than part of the design, which was disturbing - and Ninja's armour was a plain jet black which made him hard to see against the dark background, which was probably the point. Each suit appeared to be identical other than the designs; the helmets appeared to be made up of several separate but interlocking plates that formed a slight point at the forehead and chin, roughly where the eyes would be there was a strip of light that varied in colour depending on the suit design - Thunder's was orange where Ajax's was red and Ricardo's was blue - the actual armour was blocky with large rounded shoulder panels, the spine appeared to be reinforced with circular panels, there was a defined line of horizontal blocks down the chest and the armoured gauntlets reminded Juno of old warrior armour from all of these fairytales her mother used to tell her.

Her mind was drawn from her fantasizing of the past by the Admiral's voice, "Dead Echo are Public Enemy Number One, along with the Citadel Security detectives. They will try to stop you from completing your mission, and that can **not** happen. There is only one other person that could possibly influence your mission. Commander Shepard."

Yet another picture went up on the board.

This time it was a shaven headed man, a small scar cutting into his hairline and another in a cross shape below his right eye, wearing combat armour similar in structure - but not appearance - to that of Dead Echo, with a rifle in his hand. His eyes were clear blue, his features fine. Beside him stood another man, with dark hair and black armour, a pistol in his hand and a blue haze around him. The Admiral pointed to the shaven headed man, "This... is Commander Shepard. Born April 11th 2154. He's an Alliance soldier, he was placed in N7 Advanced Training and excelled, rumour is he's being put forward for the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance squad - the right arm of the Citadel Council. He was born on earth, tough environment, no parents. He enlisted at eighteen to get out of the street gangs, make a better name for himself. He's gritty, doesn't always go the good way about things but he gets it done. He held the line on Elysium and saved the lives of his entire squad in a war with the Batarians - the Skyllian Blitz - and earned himself a few special commendations and medals. He was trained as a Vanguard, he has basic biotics and is known to specialise in shotguns and assault rifles. Whatever you do, don't let him get in close - in all senses of the word, and don't trust him."

Juno frowned, examining the picture of the Commander and trying to link all she had just been told to him. To be perfectly honest he looked harmless. Then again, nobody holding an assault rifle could really be deemed harmless.

"The man with him is his Lieutenant, Kaidan Alenko. He has advanced biotic ability, but is only trained in the use of Heavy Pistols - exploit this if you ever get into combat. Are there any questions-" he paused but quickly added, "from anyone but the Sergeant?"

Sparks laughed and shrugged, "So what if I ask stupid questions? It lightens the mood, your depression is killing us all!" she sniggered again before standing from her chair and pulling Kurt with her.

The Admiral sighed again before nodding, "Okay, head out to the hangar and get kitted out, wheels up in twenty minutes."

Sparks pulled Kurt out into the hangar, humming all the way, "that was fun, I've never riled up an Admiral before."

When Kurt simply stared at her with a disbelieving look on his face she laughed again, "it's like a game for me. Ever since I was kicked out of active service the army've been trying to play pally pally with me because of my injuries. I don't need it but I exploit it for entertainment. I find a Senior Officer and I annoy the shit out of them until they snap, then I pull the cripple card on 'em. Works every time, and it used to get laughs out of the guys."

Kurt simply nodded, not understanding why the young Sergeant felt the need to play her silly games. Sparks had her reasons, none of them pretty.

After a minute Sparks spoke up, "I knew you wouldn't understand." she sighed and walked away, heading over to where thirteen suits of armour were resting on a table. The man stood behind it tossed her a separate jump-suit looking thing and grinned.

"It's biopolymer weave, it'll act as a secondary layer of protection just in case your suit gets blown to pieces."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."

And with that dreary comment, she disappeared. Probably off to change into her biopolymer weave suit, Kurt didn't know. Perhaps it was best he just left her alone for a little while, and so instead of following her, he changed and waited for her to come back to him.

***

It didn't take long for Juno to return to her faithful German Doberman, various panels of armour in hand, clad in a Biopolymer bodysuit. How could she not return to him, he was her injection of - almost - fun at the moment.

"How you doing?" he asked as she sat beside him, waiting for the pilot to come fly the shuttle. According to the nerdy guy who was _supposed_ to be flying the boat, it was a UT-47 'Kodiak' Drop Shuttle, top of the range technology. It looked like a kid made it out of Lego and was missing half of the parts, Juno was concerned that it wouldn't fly at all. To inject some humour into the situation she made the 'pilot' aware of this.

"Yeah, I'm good." she brushed off the earlier events and focussed on dealing with the present - in the form of a cocky pilot in a Duplo box, "Will this thing fly? It looks like a Duplo car."

"Trust me, she'll fly."

"She? Jeez you are a nerd." Sparks laughed and some of the team chuckled, including Kurt, but the serious atmosphere soon returned and she felt smothered again.

She didn't know how it always happened to her. She was always the socially awkward one who ended up being stuck with thirteen people she didn't know in a _'shuttle_ ' that was probably only made for four - to tell the truth it was getting a little uncomfortable on the solid plastic seats crammed in with so many bodies, evidently the people of the future knew nothing about travelling in comfort. She looked around at the crew she was crushed in with, taking in all of their faces. She supposed, if they were going to be working together in combat, that they should get to know eachother.

" _ **Icebreaker!**_ " Sparks yelled, grinning around at the crew, "I'm Sparkey, that's Kurt. I'm a techie, he's a Nazi." she pointed to the German who sighed and dropped his head into his hands before giving a small wave.

There were shocked expressions all around and Juno laughed, "Only kidding. He's not a Nazi, he's a criminal."

"Way to make it worse." Kurt groaned.

A deep but quiet voice spoke up from across the shuttle, "Steven Smith, I'm a weapons expert."

Sparks nodded, "Very good Steven, thank you for sharing. Anyone else feel like sharing with Idiots Anonymous or have we exhausted our social capacity for the day."

Before anyone else could reply the pilot cut in, "Finish getting armoured up, there'll be time for team building on the _Icarus._ "

Sparks sighed before clipping together the greaves and pulling them tight. Kurt helped her pull on the chest and spine plating before pulling on his own with little trouble. That was followed by armoured gloves and gauntlets that sat close to the biopolymer weave and weren't too bulky - which was nice for Sparks, the army Kevlar sucked compared to this stuff - and a quick tightening of straps before they all slotted themselves back together in the shuttle. How they managed to get the armour on in there, she didn’t know.

Looking out of the side window she stared at the stars and the clear black sky, she'd never seen it so dark. She watched as the Earth slipped away beneath her, green and blue meshing with white cloud cover to create a swirling mass of life. How had she not noticed that they were in space? It was insane! She looked left and her eyes widened further as she saw a huge ship, floating beside them. It was similar to the one the Admiral had shown them - _Normandy_ \- but possibly a little smaller with the word Icarus along the side.

" **That** is our boat?"

"It is a _she_ and _she_ is a _ship_."

"Yeah, whatever. It's **huge!** "

"I hear that." the guy she now knew as Steven Smith spoke up, following her line of sight.

"This is going to be **fun!** "


	3. Batarians?

"This shuttle is your only means of escape from the _Icarus_. Every one of you needs to know how to fly it." the pilot's tone was stern, it reminded the Sergeant of Admiral James - who would probably avoid her like the plague after her antics in the briefing earlier in the day. The sterner - if that was even a word - they are, the quicker they break.

"Yeah, you just gotta kill somebody off if you want to escape in comfort." some members of the group smiled and Juno sniggered before wandering off to find something more interesting to do because let's be honest, in the highly likely event of them being attacked or crashing into the side of a planet, Kurt would be by her side... she'd just get him to fly the damn shuttle.

By the time the pilot was finished ranting about the importance of collecting an Omni-Tool - whatever that was - and teaching the rest of the group how to fly the shuttle, Juno had found a place to hide that was close enough to overhear the entire debacle, but hidden well enough that nobody could see her. Thank god for strategically placed cargo crates. Behind these crates, stacked in the corner of the hangar down on the maintenance and engineering deck, was where Kurt found her.

"Why are you lurking around corners?" he asked, poking his head through the small opening between the wall and a crate and looking around. The crates were stacked high above him into a corner, almost creating a room. He squeezed through the small gap, barely managing it, and sat beside Juno on the floor.

"Maybe I'm spying on you," she laughed, "or maybe I just felt like getting away from the fact that I'm in **space**. You'll never know..."

She examined the off-white crates, noting that some had red stripes, some green and others blue. She couldn't help herself wondering what was in them, she could easily be surrounded by any manner of things; weapons, food, strange creatures packed in like sardines waiting to jump out at her... anything. She abandoned the thoughts that told her to crack one open and take a peek, not only could she not see where they opened but she had no doubt that if she did look the pilot would have her on a disciplinary faster than she could say _'stuff'_.

Turning her mind to other things she eyed gap that provided the only way into her crate paradise. "You reckon I could get one of them military cot things through that gap?" she asked, turning to Kurt.

He answered after a second of scrutinising, "If I managed to get through, yeah I'd say it'd fit. But why do you want one of them in here?" he looked at her, puzzled.

"I'm sleeping in here." her reply was simple but threw Kurt for a loop.

"In the quiet words of the Virgin Mary, come again?"

Juno sniggered, "You watch too many films. It's small and safe, nobody'd look behind a bunch of crates for a freaky kid."

Kurt nodded, accepting her reasoning - after all, it was perfectly reasonable to want to stay hidden away from the rest of the crew and the ship, and she was right about nobody looking behind a bunch of crates for a freaky kid. He decided on a change of subject, hoping to get a rise or at least a laugh out of the teenage GI, "You know, you should probably have stayed and found out how to fly the shuttle. Plus that, there was a ton of other useful stuff like where to find the loo, where the food's kept, that kind of thing."

Juno shrugged, "Nah, I figure I'll just come to you for any of that. And if we get attacked, I'll save you, you can fly the duplo car."

There was a pause as Kurt considered that... "Seriously? You want a crazy Nazi at the helm of your rescue shuttle..."

When Sparks realised the gravity of what she had just said, she burst out laughing, clutching her sides, "Well, when you put it like that." she gasped.

Kurt continued to laugh for some time until his sides hurt, the last time he'd laughed this much he was celebrating a successful theft from a rich aristocrat back on earth. A lot had changed. This fact sobered him slightly, meaning he was able to stop laughing and breath properly. Asphyxiation would be bad, especially in space - he imagined they'd just jettison his body, less funeral costs and no explanations to the higher-up's.

"The pilot mentioned something about Omi-Tools... or something. Maybe we should go get them, they're over near the shuttle - I think." Kurt stood and squeezed back out of the crate room, not waiting for any response from Juno. His recent thoughts about being jettisoned into space had put him on edge; was he really that disposable? The pilot would probably think so, Kurt hoped Juno thought enough of him that she would be on his side. One person sticking up for him on this tin can would be nice.

Juno followed him from her crate-room, oblivious of his internal moping, and laughed, "I think you mean Omni-Tools, Kurt."

He paid no attention, simply walking over to the corner of the hangar where the pilot stood.

***

_'Initialising Savant IX Intrapersonal Omni-Tool. Welcome.'_

"Wow... Just, **wow**." the orange holographic structure around her arm powered up, white text scrolling across the screen informing her of processes taking place.

'Activating Haptic Adaptive Interface. Keying Activation Sequence. Logged.'

"Haptic Adaptive Interface?" Juno turned to the pilot who stood across the table like some kind of retarded shopkeeper, watching them all.

"It's basically the touch screen, the way you use the objects. The fingertips of your bodysuit contain the activation interface. Your Omni-Tools detect a user through the microframe chip in the glove that "keys in" to the screen. It's a little complicated for you to understand." he said, his voice clipped and formal, managing to subtly patronise her - along with his smarmy smile.

Juno sighed, turning to find Kurt stood behind her, fingers gliding over the non-existant but there touchscreen. "Jeez, guy's got a rat up his ass about something." he laughed, leaning against the wall beside her.

Juno grinned and moved her finger over an icon reading _'codex'_ , surprised when it actually worked and opened another screen. Her smile only widened when she saw a database containing over a hundred entries relating to all things through the black hole.

" **CRISIS OVER!** " she cried, bouncing on the balls of her feet, " **This thing has EVERYTHING!** "

Kurt peered over her shoulder and muttered, "Hmmm, helpful." as Juno hit the _'Random Entry'_ button at the bottom of the screen.

"Varren?" she mumbled, reading through the text on the screen, "Hey, listen to this; Varren are omnivores with a preference for living prey. Originally native to the krogan homeworld of Tuchanka, they are—like most life from Tuchanka—savage, clannish, and consummate survivors. They are pack hunters when vulnerable prey is readily available and become scavengers when outnumbered or outclassed. Their supreme adaptability, vicious demeanor and rapid breeding cycle have made them ubiquitous and dangerous vermin on many worlds. Virtually everywhere the krogan have been, varren infestations have followed, wreaking havoc with the native ecology. A common subgenus of varren has metallic silver scales, leading to the rather unusual nickname 'fishdogs'."

Kurt laughed as something crossed his mind, "These Varren things... they're like vermin everywhere except for this Tuchanka - was it? - so they're like rats, right?"

Juno shrugged, "I guess so; big-ass scary rats with freaky eyes and lizard skin."

It took a second for her to realise what Kurt was thinking but when she finally understood, an evil smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth. "Dude's got a Varren up his ass." she paused, "that's gotta hurt."

Kurt found himself sniggering, "I could grow to like this freaky alien space shit... gives me new insults."

"Hmm... I see what you mean, but despite the fact that I would **love** to share your enthusiasm, I would **kill** for a pair of Joggers right now." she rapped her knuckles on the flexy armour plates of her legs, "Wonder if the Admiral actually sent up my kit-bag?"

***

"Well, fancy that; he's not been a dick." Juno sifted through her kit-bag and pulled out a pair of grey cotton jogging bottoms before pulling out a plain white tee-shirt and unclipping all of her armour panels. She figured that, since it was comfortable and it would make gearing up in a rush easier, she would just leave the Biopolymer Weave suit on.

_Biopolymer Weave Bodysuits?_

So that's spaceships, shuttles, aliens, black holes, Omni-Tools, being in frigging **space**... had she missed anything? Man, this was all so surreal. Pulling her joggers on, she sat on the floor and crossed her legs under her, leaning back against the wall and letting her head fall back with a soft _'thunk'_. The past two days had been a lot for her mind to compute; she'd gone from half crippled soldier acting as an Information Broker to a _'tech expert'_ on a spaceship floating just outside the Earth's atmosphere.

"What... is going on..." her breathing quickened as she thought about her new life - for however long it would be. She was stuck on a journey to an alien universe, with people she hardly knew, expected to fathom out advanced technology in a ridiculously unrealistic timeframe and it was all her fault. She could have just said, _'Oh no, Mr Admiral Sir, I think I'd rather like to stay at home and drink hot chocolate while mining through peoples information and contemplating the fact that my parents ditched me **again**.'_ but no, her own damn curiosity had her driving halfway across England, jetsetting halfway across Europe and now, flying halfway across the **Galaxy**.

Juno's body slid down the wall until she was laying on the floor, the steady thrum of the engines washing over her in waves. She slowed her breathing and tried her best to calm her climbing heart-rate as she thought of all the things she might see and do, what she might mean, what she might accomplish for the people back home by being among the first people to travel through into another world. This did nothing to calm her, instead making the pressure weighing down on her worse, so she turned her mind to more self-centred ideals and thought about the fact that she might end up rich, or powerful, or famous.

"I don't want to be famous or powerful," she whined, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes, "I just want to go home..."

The steady beats of the engines continued to buzz around her, so she focussed on these, wiping the tears from her eyes. She tried to imagine laying on a beach in the warm summer sun, or laying in the garden back home with the neighbour's cat curled across her stomach. This, along with the gentle movements and noise of the ship, eventually lulled her into a more docile state...

_'All crew to the briefing room.'_

And there goes the calm. The Sergeant growled at the overhead voice before pulling herself to her feet and rubbing her salt stiffened cheeks - she had to look strong or else nobody on the crew would ever take her seriously. Sliding through the gap in the crates, she walked across the empty hangar to the cargo lift and jabbed the button for 'up'. She leaned against the rail as the lift began to ascend, taking note of the fact that there appeared to be a level below the hangar on the button screen. Making a mental note to take a look down there later, she stepped out of the lift and straight into Kurt who was walking past with another member of the team that Juno didn't yet know.

"Hey, Juno. This is Sam. He's one of the Cannon Fodder." Kurt grinned, both Sam and Juno laughing at his use of the term before Juno turned to the new guy.

He had dark, cropped hair and clear green eyes. Like Kurt, he still wore his armour, the white plates flexing as they walked. Satisfied with her study, she grinned and stuck her hand out across Kurt, "Hey, I'm Juno."

Sam simply smiled and shook the offered hand, remaining silent.

"Yeah, he's the quiet type." Kurt grinned before leading the way past a large screen and up a set of curving steps.

"How do you know where you're going?" Juno looked around, puzzled.

"If you'd stayed at the briefing you'd know that the pilot showed us a map of the ship." Kurt smiled smugly.

"Alright, alright, don't get cocky. Like I said, I've got you if I get lost. And I don't do briefing's, just ask Admiral James." Juno sniggered, thinking of the flustered Admiral when she'd asked about the Turian, Garrus Vakarian.

Both Sam and Kurt smirked, saying nothing as they reached the main deck. The extremely large letters emblazoned across the wall informed her that it was known as the Combat Information Centre. She was also surprised to see what appeared to be a holographic projection of space floating in the centre of a bunch of workstations. Behind the projection stood the pilot. When he saw them he nodded, directing them behind a partition with the name of the ship engraved in it, to a plain door. It all seemed a little too _'Down the rabbit hole, secret doorway'_ for Juno to comprehend but she followed the pilot's directions anyway, if only to stay with Kurt - just in case anything horrific happened.

***

Juno, Kurt and Sam were the last of the team to arrive in the briefing room, followed by the pilot who walked to the front of the room and waited for them to take seats next to eachother before talking.

"I called this briefing to inform you that we will be arriving at the black hole in around an hour. Four hours after that we should reach a human occupied planet called Eden Prime." he paused to turn to the terminal behind him, pressing a button to bring up a holographic projection that looked much like the one in the main room, and began pointing to specific little orange circles.

"This is the system in which Eden Prime resides, Utopia, in the Exodus star cluster. This is located on the edge of a lawless portion of the galaxy known as the Terminus Systems. One of the first human colonies, Eden Prime is known for its Earth-like appearance and suitability for sustaining life, it has become a kind of symbol for humanity's ability to create functioning colonies in an interstellar community. Eden Prime is known for being a beautiful paradise for all species. This is our first location. Reports indicate that Commander Shepard is heading there for an unknown reason, however it is possible that he is seeking the Conduit. We must find it first."

He glared at the group gathered around him, staring up at the holographic projection of the planet behind him. Juno poked Kurt between his armour plates, making him wince. The pilot instantly rounded on him.

"Is there a problem, Klaus?"

"It's Kurt, sir. And no, there's no problem." Juno sniggered beside him, happy that he was finally taking some flack from the pilot rather than her. The man in question soon whirled around on her, glaring. She stopped sniggering and bit her lip, trying to hold in her laughter.

"You'd do well to take things seriously, girl. And put your armour back on, you never know when we might be attacked. We can't have you lounging around like you're on holiday! Don't think that, just because the military back on Earth shows you sympathy, I will. I have no time for people who cannot ensure they do not step on bombs. **Dismissed!** "

The pilot ended his rant looking flustered and stormed past the group gathered around the door, muttering about useless children.

"Yeah, he's a dick." Juno said simply, following him out the door.

***

_'All crew, we are beginning our approach to the black hole. ETA ten minutes. Get geared up, Captain's orders.'_

"We have a Captain? I thought the pilot called the shots." the Sergeant looked around her small hidey-hole on the engineering deck, her eyes scanning over her friends. Kurt and Sam both shrugged, thinking about it.

After the briefing all three of them had retired to the engineering deck to escape the critical eye of the pilot and the rest of the crew, it seemed that due to Juno's _'childish behaviour'_ \- the pilot's words, she would never describe herself as childish - they weren't exactly well liked among the people they were supposed to be assaulting a planet with. That could have bad consequences, but Juno didn't particularly care, she'd rather be out of the 'in crowd' and have people that were really going to watch her back than be in the 'in crowd' and be left the first time things turn sour. That had happened once before, it wasn't happening again.

"Nah, no way would they let that egomaniac take charge. We'd end up dead in the _pursuit of glory_ or some shit like that." Kurt grinned, taking no notice of how distant Juno had become, before stretching out on the floor.

_'Approaching the black hole. All crew brace for impact in ten... nine... eight...'_

Juno's eyes widened, "Impact? I know it's a technical term and all but could they at least **try** and make it sound less like Armageddon!"

The shipwide transmission continued, despite Juno's protest for it to 'shut up and get on with it, already', _'five... four... three... two... one...'_ The entire crew braced, but felt nothing. The transition through into the black hole was seamless, all systems continued to function and nobody on board had a panic attack... except maybe the pilot. Juno looked around, eyes wide.

"That's it... we're in an alien galaxy..."

Kurt followed her eyes and sighed, "It's all a bit anti-climatic, if we're being honest. I kinda expected shipwide failures and everybody running around in circles, screaming."

"Well, I'm sorry our safety bores you, Kurt." Juno smiled weakly and leaned back against the wall. No turning back now...

There was a pause and the ship jerked to the side. Juno sat up straight. A loud noise ripped through the ship, banging and crashing through every deck. Alarms wailed and the ship continued to jerk violently every few seconds almost like...

"Cannons? Cannons..." Juno breathed, " **Cannons!** We're under attack!"

She jumped up and sprinted to the weapons lockers near the shuttle, pulling out three pistols, three rifles, three shotguns and what appeared to be a first-aid kit. As an afterthought she looked around everyone else and gestured to see if they wanted anything else. Kurt reached past her and grabbed what appeared to be an oblong box painted much the same as the crates. He pressed a button and a barrel folded out, along with a scope and a stock.

"What the hell is that?"

"This, my dear, is a Sniper Rifle."

Juno shrugged, not questioning why they might need it or how he even knew what it was. There would - hopefully - be time for full explanations later.

 ** _'BATARIANS!'_** the pilots voice yelled over the broadcast system, **_'Batarians are attempting to board. PIRATES! Everyone evacuate to the shuttle! EVACUATE!'_**

"Oh shit..."

"What's in the bucket?" Kurt added cheerfully, walking over to the shuttle at a leisurely pace.

"We are so fucked."


	4. Kaidan

Kurt opened up his Omni-Tool and the shuttle interface, tapping away as if they had all the time in the world.

"I hate to break it to you, buddy, but we're on a tight schedule here!" Juno called, waiting in the open door to see if anyone would emerge from the descending cargo lift. In the back of her mind a niggling doubt formed as the ship jolted again.

Kurt ignored the stressing Sergeant and continued at his normal pace, not even noticing the movements of the ship or the deafening reports that were drawing ever closer. The bang of a shotgun, the screams of people on the decks above, all of it became muted as the cargo lift door opened.

A man wearing white armour burst out into the hangar, sprinting towards the shuttle. Juno was shocked to see Steven Smith, the guy from the Idiots Anonymous introduction on the shuttle. He ran across the hangar, occasionally tripping over his own feet in an attempt to move faster. Juno watched as the cargo lift doors closed, moving back up. They were coming.

 **"STEVEN!"** she called, **"Run!"**

He didn't need telling twice, with a quick backwards glance he gave one final push and skidded to a halt at the door of the shuttle.

"What's going on?" he gasped, sucking in huge lungfuls of air.

"Someone's attacking the ship. Something about Batarians. We were waiting for..."

Her sentence was cut off as she looked back to the cargo lift. Sparks flew from a steadily forming circular hole in the metal of the lift door. Evidently they'd decided to jump down rather than wait for the slow-ass lift and were now in the process of cutting through into the hangar. Juno didn't blame them, that lift was **SLOW**.

"We gotta move. Kurt, what's the skinny on getting the shuttle off the ground?" she kept her eyes trained on the lift, pulling her assault rifle from the chair behind her. She turned to Smith, "You need to get kitted up. Over here, I'll cover you."

She pulled him over to the lockers beside the shuttle, punching the button to open it and gesturing for him to take his fill. Her sights remained trained on the rapidly forming circle of white hot metal in the lift door. They were nearly through...

"Kurt... It's time to **GO!** " She hollered, running back to the shuttle with Smith close behind. Skidding in, she closed the door. "I'm done waiting for everyone else - if they're not all dead they will be soon, get us out of here."

Kurt hit a button and the tail end of the hangar opened up, revealing the blackness of space. Juno was a little apprehensive, but under the circumstances she'd rather die in space than be shot by a strange alien species. The shuttle lifted from the hangar floor and Juno slammed the hatch shut, seeing the circular panel in the lift door fall out just as the shuttle shot from the hangar and out into the abyss. She looked back and caught a glimpse of a humanoid figure running towards the hangar door. She pulled up her rifle and saw four beady eyes staring at her, the creature's head cocked to the right. Behind it, more of similar appearance though varying in colour started milling around before handing the creature - who was still staring at her - some kind of large weapon. The cogs in Juno's head ground together and realisation kicked in, pulling her out of her stupor induced by the four eyed creature.

" **Rocket launcher!** Get us out of here!" Juno dashed over to the pilot's cabin where Kurt sat and punched the button labelled 'FTL'.

The shuttle jerked and Juno fell backwards, landing on the floor. She looked over at Steven, who had fallen onto her kit bag - Kurt had grabbed it for her in the rushed run to the shuttle - and Sam, who had managed to fall into one of the solid seats and was now rubbing his back.

"Owwww." he whined, pulling himself up.

Juno took a second to be surprised - Sam hadn't spoken since they'd met - before standing and walking back over to Kurt who wore a flustered expression.

"What did I just do?"

"You put us in FTL flight-travel-thing..."

Juno gave him a look that he took to mean, _'in English?'_.

"You just hit the accelerator pedal. We're heading to Eden Prime. We can change course or we can keep going on the mission, what do you think?" All eyes in the shuttle appeared to be on her, Sam and Steven had their heads poked around the door into the pilot's cabin and were listening intently. Juno sighed, she hated making decisions.

"Right. We head to Eden Prime. It's supposed to be a human colony, maybe we can find someone who knows how to get home."

Kurt nodded, "Aye aye, Captain." he grinned at her, waiting for the rest of the group to leave before muttering, "but I think we're way past home."

Juno simply nodded and rested a hand on his shoulder for a few seconds before turning and leaving with a call of, "Keep me updated."

Walking into the main part of the shuttle, Juno sat on one of the chairs and watched her forlorn crew mope for a second, almost wishing she could just mope. She had no idea how or why she'd ended up in charge, she never wanted to be in charge, all she wanted was an adventure. _Well you sure got it now..._ She commanded the small voice in the back of her head to shut up before clearing her throat and straightening her back.

"Are we all okay, no injuries?"

The two members of the crew looked at her for a second before snapping into action and shaking their heads.

 _"Only my pride!"_ Kurt called through from the cockpit, making Juno smile. She was glad Kurt was still here, without him she'd be completely lost.

"Okay okay, I'm not bothered about your pride. As long as you can shoot, you're good for me. Kurt, you're my second, if I die you take over. We need to do a stock check. Weapons, ammunition... stuff like that. Do we have any grenades? What's the med-kit like? Any immediate concerns?" she could almost hear Kurt taking a breath over the silent whisper of the shuttle so she cut him off before he could say anything, "and no, potty breaks don't count!"

She heard a whine from the cockpit and laughed, pulling her assault rifle towards her. "We need to read up, use the Codex's, find out what this place is all about. Find out about these Batarians we just got sacked by. I want to know who they are, who they answer to, and where I can get some good coffee in this dump."

Her orders were executed with precision by her tight knit squad of three people. In the small period of respite she found herself thinking that this entire thing had been rigged from the start. she quickly quashed it, the last thing she needed was doubt in her own mind - she had no doubt she'd probably have to deal with plenty from the guys as it was. This entire thing was fucked.

Sighing, Juno pulled up her Omni-Tool. In the time since she'd received it she had been playing around, seeing what she could do. Under a small icon marked _'External'_ , she found some pretty interesting stuff. Deciding to investigate further now that she had extra time on her hands before they reached Eden Prime, she opened the folder. There were two more Icons, one labelled _'Ammo Powers'_ and another labelled _'General'_. Under General she found Overload, Cryo Blast and Incinerate. Intrigued, she opened the codex and searched Overload. What she found made her eyes widen.

An overload was a burst of synthetic energy generated by the Omni-Tool itself to disrupt enemy shields and overheat weapons. The codex mentioned something about several different branches of military training that utilised this power and also made reference to the other Icons on the folder. Following the links, Juno's eyes widened further. The Cryo Blast was a burst of super-cooled subatomic particles capable of snap-freezing targets within a certain radius. The Incinerate was equally as miraculous, being a high-explosive plasma round fired from the Omni-Tool capable of setting enemies alight and damaging armour.

The Ammo Powers were even more impressive, if that was possible. There were seven icons in this folder, as an experiment she pressed one. Her assault rifle was enveloped by a blue hologram, a bullet with a unique and wonderful snowflake behind it appeared just to the side of her trigger. there were six powers in total; Armour Piercing Ammo, Shredder Ammo, Warp Ammo, Cryo Ammo, Incendiary Ammo, Disruptor Ammo. Each sounded equally nasty in their own way and Juno suspected they worked the same way as the powers she had already read about. Figuring she would have to experiment with their effectiveness some other time, she opened the codex again and looked up Batarians.

_"A race of four-eyed bipeds native to the world of Khar'shan, the Batarians are a disreputable species that chose to isolate itself from the rest of the galaxy. The Terminus Systems are infested with Batarian pirate gangs and slaving rings, fuelling the stereotype of the Batarian thug. It should be noted that these criminals do not represent average citizens, who are forbidden to leave Batarian space by their omnipresent and paranoid government. Despite several disagreements with the Citadel and simmering hostility toward humans, most Batarians prefer profitable pursuits such as drug running and slave grabs to out-and-out warfare. They have a reputation for being shrewd businessmen and merchants, though in more lawless regions of the galaxy like Omega, negotiations with a Batarian are likely to be conducted at gunpoint."_

Juno's temper worsened as she read over the article. The bastards like James had sent them through with virtually no knowledge of what was out here - supposedly, though with the extent of the Omni-Tool codex's she didn't know how they could possibly be so ill informed by accident - and just expected them to bring back this Conduit without a fuss. It was impossible. They'd only been in the damn galaxy for ten minutes and they'd already been victim of a Batarian Pirate attack that had left them ship-less and out of touch with Earth Command.

Everything was going to shit faster than anyone expected.

***

"Hey Juno..."

She poked her head through into the cockpit and grinned at Kurt, "What is it?"

"We're coming up on Eden Prime. Take a look." he decreased the opacity of the front screen and Juno gasped. The planet she was looking at looked just like earth, all green and blue with some white cloud cover. It was a beautiful sight. They were coming up on the dark side, the star behind the planet causing a corona that blinded them both. Despite this they both found it hard to look away. Three days ago Juno could only have imagined this kind of thing, now she was here living it. And she thought being an Information Broker was farfetched...

"This is insane..." she felt as if she was saying that way too much when it didn't really justify the situation, it was way past insane.

"I'm taking us in. Let's see how easy it is to land this thing. Get everyone back there ready, I'll come through when we're down."

Juno nodded and moved back into the main part of the shuttle addressing Sam and Steven, "Okay, we're coming up on Eden Prime. We need to stay focussed and keep a look out for this Conduit. Try to avoid Commander Shepard, the reports said he was here; I'm not sure how accurate that is or how likely we are to bump into him, but if we do keep your guard up... we don't know what he's capable of."

There were mumbled affirmatives before the shuttle jerked violently, Kurt emerging from the cockpit looking shaken a moment later.

"You call that a landing?" Juno grinned and punched him in the arm, "Good job, Kurt."

The door to the shuttle lifted open, revealing a grassy area surrounded by trees. Trust Kurt to put them down in trees... oh well, it was safe and that was the main thing. With a sigh, she began the task of closing the shuttle and navigating the copse of forest.

"Weapons ready, but don't fire until I give the go ahead."

The trees were dense and visibility was bad in the dark, Juno kept her eyes wide watching carefully for any movement. She held up her hand for the group to stop, looking around. Movement caught the corner of her eye and she whipped around, training her assault rifle on the area. She gestured for the group to split, Sam moving on the left flank, Steven on the right and her and Kurt up the middle. Moving slow and staying low to minimise noise, they crept toward what appeared to be the edge of the forest. Juno scoped around, finding nothing.

"All cle-"

Her call was cut off by a strangled yell from the right and a mechanical sounding gurgle. That was strange, mechanical things didn't tend to gurgle. she scanned the area to her right, looking for the source of the noise. Abandoning the quiet tactic, she stood and walked towards a large mass on the floor.

"Steven..." she breathed, crouching down beside the white armour of her team mate. Her heart was in her throat as she closed his glassy eyes, trying to ignore the charred flesh exposed through gaping holes in the chest of his armour. "On me, guys. Steven's down."

The remaining two members of her team stood behind her, looking down over the body before averting their eyes. Sam sighed in defeat.

"We're all being picked off, one by one..." he muttered, looking around.

"I wonder what did it." Kurt began walking away, scouting around the ground and trees. It was hard to watch two areas at once and so he missed a small mechanical component in a pile of synthetic goop. However he did find-

" **Enemy!** " he crouched and aimed his rifle at the grey-blue skin of the humanoid figure before him. It turned, the glowing blue lights in it's eyes trained on him. The mechanics of it's ribcage hung out, glowing with more blue light. It looked human but it was far from it. The creature watched him for a second, as if thinking, before charging at him. Electricity crackled around it's body. Kurt froze. He couldn't do anything. His fingers wouldn't move to pull the trigger.

Out of nowhere the _things_ head exploded, it's body slumped to the floor and what was left of it crumbled and fell away until it was nothing more than a pile of green-ish mess. Kurt breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thanks." he breathed, turning to see Juno running towards him.

"For what?"

Kurt raised his eyebrow, gesturing to the pile of goo, "You didn't kill that thing?"

Juno shook her head, her eyes drawn to something over Kurt's shoulder.

"I did."

Kurt whipped around and saw a familiar face staring at him with crystal blue eyes.

"James Shepard."

Kurt stared at the proffered hand, blinking slowly before taking it. "Kurt."

Commander Shepard nodded, his eyes passing over the three people before him; the man with the strange accent who had introduced himself as Kurt stood with an assault rifle slung across his arms, staring into space; a woman behind him who had mismatched eyes, a vivid green and a clear blue - one with some kind of problem causing her pupil to be a milky white, and was holding a shotgun; and one other man who had short mousy brown hair and carried a pistol. All carried more advanced weapons, including sniper rifles, shotguns and an assault rifle each but their armour was mediocre with no shields and no other form of protection other than the actual mass of the armour. It was pitiful.

"How the hell you've survived this far, I don't know. Is this _your_ squad?"

Kurt grinned, "Neither do I. And no, it's not my squad... It's hers." Kurt gestured to Juno, who wore a look of distrust as her eyes raked down the Commander, taking in everything about him, scrutinising.

Commander Shepard raised his eyebrow and turned his questioning towards Juno, "How did you get this far out from the colony?"

Juno shook her head, "We're not from the colony. We were attacked by Batarian Pirates. What's going on here, what was that thing?" she had not seen it before it was reduced to a pile of goop but it must have been pretty severe to render Kurt useless.

"It was a Husk. The Geth have been repurposing Colonists to form an attack force, they launched a surprise assault on the planet. Nobody knows why."

Juno nodded and was about to reply but a shadow moved in the distance, she pulled up her assault rifle and trained it on the movement behind Shepard. She paused for a second, moving past him as he stood, a look of shock plastered on his face. Kurt and Sam followed, weapons up and following Juno's line of sight. Something moved again and Juno called out, " **Stop, who's there?** "

"Friendly." came the call back.

Shepard ran past Juno and into the shadows, a light blossoming from his Omni-Tool, "Kaidan?" he called.

"Shepard?"

A man wearing blue armour walked out of the darkness and stepped up to Shepard, quickly high-five-ing him before looking past him towards Juno and her small squad. "What's going on? Where did you disappear to?"

"Shepard..." Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko's eyes passed over all of the people crowded around, he dropped his head and sighed, "Nihlus is dead..."


	5. Eden Prime; Swallowing Teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eden Prime: Part 1 of 3.

"Shepard…" Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko sighed and hung his head, "Nihlus is dead…"

The Commander let out a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. He licked his lips and composed himself, breathing deeply before nodding, "okay. Kaidan, go and secure his body ready for transport."

Kaidan nodded and ran off again, pulling his pistol from the magnetic strip on his hip and turning on his Omni-Tool light. He pulled his hands up in what reminded Juno of a Tactical Knife position, resting his gun arm across his Omni-Tool arm, and ventured into the night.

Shepard turned back to Juno, "Do you have any way off world?"

Juno nodded, "We've got a Drop Shuttle. Kurt's our pilot."

Shepard shook his head, "You won't make it through any Relay's in that. Send Kurt back to the shuttle, I'll have my pilot swing the Normandy around and you can tag along with us for a while. When the Shuttle's on board Joker'll drop Kurt back into the field and he can move with us to extraction. If that's okay with you?"

Thinking about it, Juno had no other choice. She had no doubt that Shepard was right, after all he did know more about this place than she did... she just didn't want to accept help from him. He was _'Public Enemy Number One'_. The last thing she needed when she got back home - if she ever got back home - was Admiral James and his cronies chewing her out because she was working with the enemy. That would suck pretty bad.

Sucking up her pride and any fear of reprisals, Juno nodded, "Okay. Kurt, head back to the shuttle. No showing off, I don't need you killing yourself because you're being stupid. Sam, you're on me, I want someone covering my ass." Glancing at Shepard, she added, “No offence…” he simply smirked in response as Kurt called an affirmative - along with a jokey comment about him not being **that** bad - and ran back in the direction of the shuttle to wait for Shepard's pilot. Sam nodded, moving closer to her side and Juno looked at Shepard who nodded.

"Okay, let's move out."

***

It was slow going around the hilly terrain of Eden Prime but they were making good time towards Shepard's objective - Juno still didn't know what they were after - so the Sergeant took this time to mine for information. She started with the obvious thing.

"So, why are you here?"

Shepard glanced sideways at her, waiting for her to match his pace before he spoke, "It was supposed to be a Shakedown Run, checking the systems of the new ship. My Captain was chosen so we tagged along. We were headed for Eden Prime anyway - nobody but the Captain and this Turian SPECTRE we had aboard knew why - then we got a distress call from some ground troops on the planet. I can't really say more than that unless I want **everyone** on my case."

Juno nodded, taking time to process the information she had just been given. They were on the planet for a reason that Shepard couldn't say - Juno had _no doubt_ that his ass would be on the line if he did. It could be the Conduit, intelligence back on Earth did suggest that he was here for something to do with it. Maybe it was a good thing they were attacked and decided to shadow Shepard, they might actually be able to do what they were sent here for. She may have disliked accepting his help but there was no doubt that it would be beneficial to their mission. If only he could tell her why his crew was here...

"So how did your crew end up separated, you said your friend disappeared?"

Shepard nodded, gladly opening up to her questioning, "Kaidan Alenko, he's my Lieutenant. We were separated by a Geth attack as soon as we dropped. Nihlus dropped ahead of us; Kaidan dropped with me and another member of our crew - Jenkins. Jenkins died... the Geth shot him... Me and Kaidan, we ended up splitting; Kaidan went one way and I was forced to go the other. Geth were shooting at us the whole time, I looked for Kaidan but I couldn't find him. The first I saw of him after we dropped was when I found you guys. He must have circled around in a different direction and found Nihlus... Man, everything's gone to shit..."

Shepard was moping, there was no other way to describe it. The supposedly strong and dangerous Commander Shepard was moping. Sure two of his friends died but he needed to man up and deal with that later, right now he had a mission to complete. Instead of being blunt, Juno tried a softer tack.

"It's not your fault... there was nothing you could have done. You said it yourself, you were under attack-"

"If I'd found him, maybe I could have saved Nihlus. This isn't just because two of my friends are dead, this will endanger the entire Council and set the Alliance's already pretty damn rocky reputation on a downturn into shit-butt-city! And it's all my fault."

Juno simply shook her head and left him to it, deciding that it wasn't her problem if he felt guilty for something he didn't do. Instead she focused on the world around her, taking in the lush green trees and relative peace and quiet of the forest. She had never seen anything like it, sure she'd been in forests before, but nothing like this. In any forest Juno ever visited you could always hear the cars on the nearest motorway, or the sound of your neighbour yelling at her kids, or another neighbour's prime time game shows blasting at full volume because she's let her hearing aid battery run low. This place... this place was the kind of peaceful Juno could only dream of.

" **Contact left!** "

And there goes all previous calm. It seemed to be a regular occurrence that any semblance of calm achieved is shattered as quickly as it's formed. Juno was convinced that somebody was out to ensure she never let her guard down again.

The Sergeant spun left, sighting up on a humanoid figure crackling with blue electricity. She froze and stared for a second before snapping out of her daze and squeezing off one burst which hit low centre mass, blowing the entire bottom half of the creature into some organic-mechanic nutrient paste. She paused for a second to find the entire spectacle repulsive before turning on the last enemy, firing another burst into low centre mass. It seemed that, if you hit them in the right place, these _'things'_ weren't so mean.

"I wonder what freaked Kurt out so much?" Juno stepped back up to stand beside Shepard, who turned to look at her.

"Maybe it's the fact that these things used to be people..." there was a bitter, saddened edge to his voice that made Juno regret ever saying anything. She was about to apologise when she realised he was no longer beside her, instead he was powering on ahead towards what looked like a porta-cabin with a glowing panel next to the door. The panel was red.

"There's someone in here." he stepped closer and opened his Omni-Tool, making a few movements across the screen and hitting a few buttons. Within a matter of seconds the panel next to the door chimed and turned green. Shepard pulled his assault rifle up and stepped through the door, looking around cautiously. Crouching in the corner, behind a bunk bed protruding from the wall, were a woman and a man wearing medical attire.

"Please, don't hurt us." came the soft and trembling voice of the woman. She stood slowly, holding her hands out, "thank the maker someone came, I thought we'd be trapped here until they left."

"What happened here? Who are you?" Shepard stepped closer to the woman and she flinched away, looking back to the man behind her who seemed to be curled in on himself, trembling.

"I'm Dr. Warren, this is my assistant Manuel. Th-they came this morning, those things. The Marines... they gave their lives so we could hide in here. They sealed us in..." tears streamed down her face as she spoke, Shepard did not seem to notice and simply looked unimpressed.

"Jeez, you're a dick!" Juno stormed past Shepard and put her arm around the woman, letting her cry into the solid armour plates of her shoulder. Leading her over to the bunk, she sat beside the red haired doctor and comforted her until she was calmer. The man who had been hiding with the doctor simply stood there, staring at Shepard.

"You got a problem." Shepard growled.

"Oh, don't mind him. Come, Manuel, you should sleep." the doctor stood and wiped her eyes before walking over to Manuel, taking his arm gently.

He resisted her attempts and continued to stare at Shepard, who was growing more and more annoyed, "Okay, do you want to stop staring, or would you rather swallow your teeth?"

" **Shepard!** " Juno scalded him without thinking and he turned his glare onto her. Dr. Warren finally managed to get Manuel to stop staring but Shepard was too busy contemplating chewing Juno out to notice.

"What?" was the Commander's simple reply.

"You can't talk to him like that. You can't just go around being a dick to people, some people are basically... decent." she stood and walked back to Shepard's side, staring up into his clear blue eyes. He was a good few inches taller than her so it was difficult for her to appear intimidating when she could barely see eye to eye with him.

Shepard held her stare for a second before sighing, "That's not always been my experience, but you're right. I apologise." it was rushed but it was the realisation that he was wrong which counted for Juno. Shepard continued to question the Doctor while Juno stepped back beside Sam.

After a minute spent in relative silence, Sam spoke, "You were right to confront him about that, you know."

Juno nodded, "I know, I just don't want to get jettisoned into space because I pissed him off."

Sam simply nodded, understanding her point. It was rare for him to speak this much and it was making him feel self-conscious.

After waiting while Shepard spoke to the doctor - his tone softer than it had been previously - they finally turned to leave. "We need to be at the Spaceport. I guess you're going to find out what I'm after when we get there so I may as well tell you. We're looking for a Prothean Beacon."

Juno paused, trying to recall anything to do with the Protheans in her reading. They were supposedly a hyper advanced race that came before all of the races that are known now, they mysteriously vanished 50,000 years ago but ruins are still being found today that are slowly uncovering more about them. Her eyes widened, 50,000 years was a long time.

"Wow... Did they find it here?"

Shepard simply nodded, turning to leave. Before they had chance to walk out of the door, Manuel spoke from his place on the bunk.

"They're coming. Nothing can stop them. We're all going to die..."

Dr. Warren sighed and bid them farewell before turning back to Manuel, telling him to hush and go to sleep, that his meds would start to work and he would feel better soon.

Stepping out of the stuffy porta-cabin made Juno very uncomfortable, perhaps more uncomfortable than she had felt when confronting Shepard. Though this discomfort was probably due to the assault rifle she found pointed at her forehead. Her eyes went crossy in an attempt to watch the barrel carefully, she paid little attention to the person holding the gun until she heard a female voice.

"Who are you and why are you here?"

"Ease up, Marine. She's with me..."

Never in her life did she think she would be so happy to hear Shepard's voice.

"Were you stationed here, Marine?"

"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 212, stationed as security for the colony, sir." the marine, Williams, relaxed but still didn't move her rifle.

"No need to be so jumpy. And don't call me Sir, you make me feel like an old man. We're heading to the spaceport to pick up a Prothean Beacon. If you're stationed here you've got to have heard about that."

"I know a little, si-" Shepard held up his finger and Williams scowled, "What do I call you then?"

"Shepard, Commander Shepard. What do you know?"

"The last I heard the Beacon was still back at the dig site, couple minutes back that way." she gestured behind her with her thumb, "they dug it up a couple of days ago and everyone's been swarming on it. There should've been a ship coming to pick it up today, but then we were attacked."

"Yeah, that ship was us. You hurt, Williams?"

Shepard’s eyes scanned over the woman stood before him, her red and white armour pitted with small scratches. She was a typical marine; strong jaw, hard eyes, clear manner. He hated marines just for that reason, they were so damn **rigid**.

"Just a few scrapes and burns, nothing serious. The rest of the squad weren't so lucky." she brushed some dirt from her shoulder and moved her assault rifle across her chest, glaring at Juno.

Juno glared back, stepping closer to Shepard. All of a sudden, she felt that familiar sting in her gut. Jealousy clawed its way through her stomach, stabbing her in the kidneys and making her wince. It had been a long time since she'd felt like that, and it was over Shepard and a strange marine in an alien universe. She didn't know why, but she felt some kind of allegiance to Shepard - maybe because he'd saved Kurt's life and offered them a lift - and didn't trust this new girl... or maybe it was just the fact that the marine was so stiff and would probably end up scuppering her mission with _'Rules and Regs'_.

Shepard, meanwhile, was nodding, "Okay, we're going for the Beacon. You're welcome to tag along."

"Aye aye, time for payback."

Juno sighed and swallowed the bile rising in her throat. She pushed down the jealousy, replacing it with an intense hatred for both Shepard and Williams. The only people she intended to stay loyal to were her crew and the Brass back home. Providing she didn't do anything stupid or piss Shepard off, she should be done and home in time for Christmas.

With thoughts of green trees and twinkling lights somewhere in the desert, she soldiered on beside Shepard, Sam at her side. _Home for Christmas... as if..._


	6. Eden Prime; That's My Line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eden Prime: Part 2 of 3.

Chapter 6: Eden Prime: That's My Line

"Alright, we're coming up on the Spaceport. I want everyone in tight, if you see any Husks, shout up. Let's **roll**."

Juno raised her eyebrow as she watched Shepard walk ahead of her. He was like a teenager on crack, constantly changing and hyperactive. Although, crack probably didn't exist in this Universe so that was most likely an inaccurate comparison. In fact, Juno realised, she didn't have a clue what did or didn't exist in the universe she was in now. Any manner of things could still be in use… or everything could be different. There would have to be some things the same; maybe Mobile Phones still existed on some backwater planet that wasn't part of the technological age yet… or video games.

She was brought from her thoughts of mobile phones and video games by Williams calling out, "What is that? Is that thing a **ship?** "

"It's huge..." Sam mumbled, a tone of awe in his voice. He was finding it difficult to actually comprehend a vessel of that size. Nothing was that big back at home, the ship now pulling away from the planet - the blood red backdrop of the sky increasing the aura of menace it radiated tenfold - would have dwarfed skyscrapers.

"I hear that..." Shepard muttered, letting his assault rifle fall to his side as he stared up into the red sky and watched the ship pull away, what appeared to be red lightening crackled around the forward arms and everything about it screamed _'I'm not nice! Keep away!'_. Shepard continued to walk towards the Spaceport, spotting another cabin with a red door panel.

"More survivors?" Juno asked, following his line of sight.

"Could be... let's check it out." Pulling his assault rifle up again, Shepard walked towards the cabin, surprisingly cautious.

" **Commander! Geth, Eleven O'clock!** " Juno vaguely recognised the voice that came from behind a rock before them. Shepard whirled around and began firing at the Geth trying to creep up behind them, stunning them into firing back.

"Kaidan-" _Ah, so it was Kaidan..._ Juno thought before firing into the group of mechanical humanoids advancing on them. Her first thought upon seeing them was that they had some sort of head lamp on, but then she realised that what appeared to be lamps were actually the creature's heads.

"-I need your Overload!" Shepard called as the Geth began to creep closer. There seemed to be more of them here than in the rest of the Colony, Shepard's suspicions about the Beacon being close only intensified as Geth Snipers and Rocket Drones appeared and fired on them, "target the Rocket Drones! **Make it quick else we're all gonna be eating bullets!** "

"On it!" Kaidan called over the distinctive sounds of gunfire and rockets. He appeared over the rock and pressed some buttons on his Omni-Tool. Juno watched as a bolt of what appeared to be electricity shot from his wrist and hit one of the nearest things firing rockets, causing it to spasm and fall to the ground.

" **One down!** " Kaidan proceeded to target the other enemies as Shepard, Williams and Juno's crew fired on the rest, taking them down quickly. Juno looked around at all of the mangled mechanical bodies lying relatively close. She stepped over and examined one, the light in its optic just flickering out as she crouched beside it.

"What are these things?"

"Geth." Shepard's answer was simple, as if she was supposed to understand what he was talking about. The name was roughly familiar from her reading on the journey.

"You don't pay much attention to the news reels, do you?"

Juno shook her head, "I try not to."

Shepard nodded and crouched beside her, "The Geth haven't been seen outside the Perseus Veil in nearly three hundred years, not since they took over the Quarian homeworld, Rannoch, and forced them out. They were supposed to be mechanical slaves, the first true AI's, but the Quarian's didn't realise their potential. When the Geth started asking why they existed, the Quarian's decided enough was enough and tried to get shot of them. They tried the fail-safe they built in but the Geth had adapted, they fought back and drove the Quarian's out. Most people think that the Geth were planning to fight the Quarian's for control of the Rannoch all along, but others say that the Geth wouldn't have fought if the Quarian's hadn't tried to kill them all."

Juno listened closely, nodding, "and what's your take on it?"

Shepard raised his eyebrow, "Honestly? I think that the Quarian's were in the wrong. It was attempted mass genocide against a sentient species. In most councils that would be a crime, but as the Geth were AI's nobody took any notice."

"I agree." Juno nodded slowly before standing.

Shepard stood beside her, "We should get moving. Everybody over to that cabin, let's see if there's anybody in there."

Everybody crowded around the door while Shepard hacked the console, Juno watched on, fascinated.

"You **have** to teach me how to do that before I jump ship."

Shepard laughed, "Come and see me on the Normandy after we're done here and I'll teach you."

"Hey, Shepard..." the man in question looked over to Kaidan and nodded for him to continue, "you know we don't actually use bullets anymore, right?"

Shepard laughed, hitting the door panel as he spoke, "Well, saying _a solid metal slug using precisely-controlled electromagnetic attraction and repulsion intended to flatten against a target and cause maximum damage_ , wouldn't really work would it?"

Kaidan laughed and nodded, "It's not as catchy, I'll admit."

There was a smattering of laughter throughout the group which stopped when the door to the cabin slid open with a pressurised _'woosh'_ and a woman stepped out, tears pouring down her face.

"What happened?" Shepard instantly began his harsh questioning. This just served - as it had with Doctor Warner - to make the woman break down into a flood of tears.

"Not much of a people person, are you Shep?" Juno sighed and moved past him, slipping into her predetermined role of 'comfort figure' for the distraught woman. She carefully shushed her, placing her arms around her shoulders. The woman hugged her close, despite not even knowing who she was, and mud rubbed off onto Juno's armour. She looked down at the woman - who was a few inches shorter than herself - a took in her rust brown garb that looked almost like a jumpsuit crossed with dungarees. Shooting a questioning glance to Shepard, Juno began her careful questioning, trying to coax answers out of the traumatised survivor.

"What happened here?"

"Th-them things came for us. I thought they looked like Geth but Cole didn't believe me." When asked who Cole was by Shepard she answered he was a friend, rather too quickly if Juno admitted it, "That ship came over and landed somewhere near the Spaceport, the Geth came from that way too. They must have been after the Beacon, some of them went to the dig site and some of them stayed here... to wipe us out. When we saw them coming with guns we ran into the shed and hid. Cole went out after, said he was going for help, but he never came back..."

Juno sighed, it was distinctly possible that they had just shot Cole's Husk, but Juno refused to tell her that.

"Okay, will you be alright here until more help comes?"

The woman nodded, going back into the shed before returning, "Here. Cole took it from the shipments, said we might need it."

Juno took the pistol offered and handed it to Shepard, thanking the woman. Before they had a chance to leave Williams had grabbed the woman's arm and was questioning her roughly.

" **What did you think you were doing, taking things from the shipping containers!** " Williams shook the woman roughly, leaning close.

" _It was Cole's idea! I had nothing to do with it!_ "

" **Bullshit-** " Williams was about to continue berating the woman but Shepard stepped in, grasping her arm tightly and forcing her to let go of the worker.

"That's enough, Cheif. It was wrong to take it but if they hadn't things could have gone a lot worse." he let her go, leaving her with a glare as he turned to the woman, "What do you do here?"

"I'm a farmer, we were in the fields when the Geth attacked." the woman's voice was tentative, whether that was because of the Chief's outburst or a totally different reason wasn't clear but something had rattled her.

"How does a farmer get access to the shipping containers?" Shepard's voice remained perfectly calm and objective, his tone free of either malice or comfort.

"C-Cole was in with a guy at the docks. He-he ran a small smuggling ring, shipping out military goods..." she looked at the floor, shame colouring her tone.

" **So you stole it!** " Williams started to fly off the handle, ranting about the military needing those supplies, yada yada yada. Juno didn't really pay attention, she was more concerned with finding out what the hell was going on around this creepy planet.

"Calm down, Williams." the Commander turned back to the farmer, "Can you give me the name of Cole's contact?"

She nodded, "His name was Powell. He should have been on shift when the Geth landed."

Shepard nodded and thanked her for the help before turning and walking away toward the Spaceport. On the short walk to the white and silver metal of the Spaceport walkways Shepard turned to Juno, handing her the pistol from the farmer. When she asked why he was giving it to her, his answer was simple, "She gave it to _you_ , not me. It's only fair that you get to keep it."

Thanking him, Juno wandered up the steps beside the rest of the crew, looking around. She spotted something on the floor, something that Kaidan should have been prepping for transport.

"Is that Nihlus?" she asked carefully, walking over to the Turian laying on the floor, blue blood pooling around his body. His finely scaled skin was a dark red and there was clear white paint across his jaw and the carapace of his forehead.

"So the paint... it doesn't indicate gender? Is it something to do with Clans?" as Juno puzzled it out, Shepard dropped to his knees next to the Turian, examining his body.

"One shot to the back of the head. Somebody knew the Turian weakness."

Juno paused as she heard a noise behind them, a shuffling behind some crates. She stepped closer and Williams followed her movements, hearing the noise and seeing a small twitch of colour behind the storage boxes.

"Something's moving," she called, "over by those crates!"

Instantly five guns were trained on the crates and the shuffling continued. "Wait, don't shoot." a head appeared above the lip of the top box; a round faced man with clear eyes, fear etched into his heavy features.

"Who are you? What are you doing behind those crates?"

The man looked shocked then dead-panned, "I was hiding."

Juno could almost feel the force of Shepard's facepalm. As if it wasn't obvious enough what the poor guy had been doing, maybe it was just that Shepard enjoyed asking stupid questions. Most ranking officers enjoy asking stupid questions, it's a power thing; they feel that because they outrank everyone they're allowed to be stupid, nobody can question them. Though this didn't seem to be the case with Shepard, evidently the facts under his nose just eluded him this one time. _Hopefully_.

"My name's Powell," the man continued, "I work on the Docks."

Shepard moves to speak but Williams cuts in, "You're the smuggler?"

Powell's face moved from scared, to shocked and back again so fast that Juno didn't even realise the change had happened. He still looked terrified, but of Williams rather than the creepy mechanical things that were more than likely still wandering around the planet looking for things to kill. Williams looked murderous; she stepped forward and grabbed the front of Powell's dungaree-thing, yanking him over the crates.

" **What did you think you were doing? That equipment could have saved the lives of the men who died today!** "

Juno raised her eyebrow, _survivor's guilt much?_ "Williams, stop. He couldn't have known. It's not his fault your unit got wiped out."

...

 _And there's my bluntness getting me in deep shit again,_ Juno thought as she watched Williams' shoulders tense.

The Marine whirled around, glaring at Juno. Shepard stepped in, "Juno's right. What Powell did was wrong-" he shot a disapproving glare at the dock worker still hanging from Williams' fist, "but it **wasn't** his fault - not directly - and he **couldn't** have known."

Williams looked as if she wouldn't listen for a second... but then she let go of Powell and sighed, her shoulder's dropping. Turning to Juno, she had a grudging respect in her eyes, "You're right. But it's either Ash, or Cheif, none of that Williams crap."

Juno nodded, flashing a smile before looking up at Shepard. He looked like a father watching his two rebellious finally get along, it was rather strange. "Right then, I guess we should get moving." he said after a second, breaking the awkward silence that threatened to form over them like a midget raincloud in all of those retarded Anime's back on earth.

"You." Juno pointed at Powell, "Where's the beacon?"

"I-it's down at the Spaceport. Take the tram. That's where the other Turian went." he pointed to the left and nodded before disappearing back behind the crates.

"Other Turian?" Shepard asked, peeking over the crates.

"Yeah, your friend called him Saren." a knowing look passed over Shepard's face and he turned to face Kaidan who nodded. He had a face like thunder. 

Shepard was about to walk away but turned back to where Powell was hiding, "Why didn't the others hide behind the crates like you?" the curiosity in his tone seemed innocent but Juno could see a deeper motive, he was suspicious.

"I-I was already back here when the attack started... I sometimes take a nap..."

Ash glared in disgust, fingers lingering near her pistol before thinking better of it. She punched him instead.

"Kaidan, new guy whose name I don't know, grab Nihlus. We've got a train to catch."

Juno sighed, throwing a glance at Sam who was scowling at her, before shrugging and following Shepard's rather large retreating form - he must have been over six feet tall to Juno's five-foot-four. It was hard to not be unnerved by his presence, but she had managed so far.

"His name's Sam." Juno muttered, walking up beside Shepard.

"Thanks." was all he said, hitting the button on the tram with impish glee. Juno had no doubt he would be enjoyable company, depending on how long they decided to stay with the Normandy, but living with a thirty-year-old boy would probably take some getting used to.

***

"Bombs. Fucking bombs? **Fucking A!** " Shepard growled, glaring at the contraption before him, "as if this day couldn't get any worse..."

Juno watched as he opened his Omni-Tool, crouching beside the large cylindrical thing that Shepard had previously identified as a bomb. It was quite unnerving to be so close to a bomb once again, especially after the colossal fuck up that had lead to her eye getting jacked up and losing her best friends. Shepard looked up, hearing footsteps behind Juno. Swivelling around on her heel, she grinned, running up to the person and throwing herself into his waiting arms. She had never been a 'hugs!' kind of person but the situation was making her tense.

Kurt looked down at her, raising his eyebrow at her odd behaviour. She simply gestured to the bomb and he nodded, understanding her trepidation. Kurt was the only one who truly understood as he was the only one she had told about her squad, perhaps she would tell the others in time but for now one was enough.

"Uh, Commander?"

"Huh?"

"Don't you think you should be focussing on the bomb?"

"The bomb? _The bomb!_ Yeah, I really should be focussing on the bomb."

Juno glared at the side of the Commander's head from where she stood beside her Second, now really wasn't the time to be getting smart or stupid. If this random guy who just so happened to swing by and pluck her squad out of serious trouble then got them killed, she would revive him and kill him again herself. She proceeded to tell him her entire thought process, including the part about him being 'some random guy' - in _slightly_ less polite words - and he simply laughed.

"Relax, it's done." he stood and stretched, "but I'll bet there's more. Be on your guard and we'll be fine. C'mon guys, let's push through this last bit and go home. Don't get smart or stupid."

Shepard grinned at Juno, who punched his shoulder lightly.

"That's my line."

" **GETH!** " Sam called.

Kaidan sighed, "And that's mine..."


	7. Eden Prime; Conclusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eden Prime: Part 3 of 3.

"Relax, it's done." Shepard stood from the bomb and stretched, "but I'll bet there's more. Be on your guard and we'll be fine. C'mon guys, let's push through this last bit and go home. Don't get smart or stupid."

Shepard grinned at Juno, who punched his shoulder lightly.

"That's my line."

" **GETH!** " Sam called.

Kaidan sighed, "And that's mine..."

Whipping around and training her assault rifle on the Geth behind them, Juno was once again struck by how human they looked upon first glance; despite the flashlight head, there was little else except the mechanics – which weren't really obvious in a fleeting glance – that set them apart. And if they could really think like Shepard said…

Her finger froze on the trigger as she stared at the one walking towards her. There was no clear gender, no clear identifying features except the gun in its hand – every enemy gun seemed different in some way whether it be a different shaped trigger guard or a slightly longer barrel – but she began to see the creature as a human. It wasn't organic but it was capable of thought and conscience, consciousness, guilt.

" _It's going to **kill you! SHOOT IT!**_ " Shepard yelled, wrapped up in hand to hand combat with another Geth and thus unable to help her.

Juno quickly objectified the Geth, as she had the people in Afghanistan, and fired a clean burst into its optic, wincing as it fell to the floor. _May as well make it quick and clean_.

" **What happened? You lose your nerve? _What were you thinking!_** " Shepard cried, walking over to her, his voice became softer as he continued to speak, "It would have killed you, you know. No chance for reasoning. They think in cold, hard logic… If it sees other Geth being slaughtered by Humans it's going to think of us all as enemies. It's self preservation, surely you learned that in the forces."

Juno went to nod, to tell him she understood, but something stopped her.

"How did you know I was in the army?"

Shepard paused, his eyes flicking between her and the ground. He looked ready to explain but quickly decided against it and played it off by muttering, "Just an inkling. Now, let's go."

The rest of the Spaceport was relatively uneventful. The time out of combat gave Juno a chance to think over Shepard's obvious slip up; _how did he know? What else does he know? Could he know about- no, that's not possible._ The fact that Shepard knew something about her played on her mind all the way to the final bomb, her mind constantly ticking over with theories. She barely noticed when a Husk popped up in front of her, absentmindedly punching it to the ground before firing a single burst into its head. Kurt seemed to notice because he sidled over to her when Shepard took a minute to speak to Kaidan about the final bomb.

"What's up?"

Juno looked up and saw the German towering over her.

"Nothing... it's just... Do you think he knows? He knew I was in the army, what else could he know?" she sighed, running a hand over her short hair, "This is getting too much. I didn't sign up for this."

Kurt laughed, "None of us signed up for this, kid. Most of the crew never even got to see this place, they never knew. All _**I**_ want right now is to go back to Germany and hide in a hole, but I can't. And neither can you."

Juno nodded, following Kurt's gaze to Ash, who stood over behind Shepard looking around for any more enemies. By now Shepard was nearly done with the last disarm, it was just a matter of tagging the Beacon and heading back to the Normandy. Then Juno had to figure out if she would be staying with Shepard, or if they would indeed jump ship as she'd said they would. It would be a tough decision, in light of recent event; Shepard clearly knew too much about her to say that he hadn't even known her for an hour, but he could probably lead them to the Conduit. It was a catch 22. Whichever way they turned they were screwed.

A noise of triumph came from Shepard as he stood and stretched once again, "Finally done. That one was tough, great programming to say the Geth don't have two brain cells to rub together."

"Nope, they have fifteen billion diodes instead." Kaidan commented dryly, picking up Nihlus and proceeding down a small walkway.

A bad feeling crept into Juno's gut as the Beacon came into sight. It had a ghostly green aura, lights blossoming along its length. To be honest, it just looked like a giant, creepy pole thing. There was nothing special about it except it looked ancient and glowed green.

"So, what's so special about this thing?" Kurt muttered in her ear.

"It's 50,000 years old. Came from an extinct race called the Protheans. They supposedly built everything and were of superior intellect. I'll tell you more when this lot aren't listening." Juno hissed from the side of her mouth, keeping her eyes on the crew for any hints that they had heard. There weren't any, all seemed quiet on the homefront.

Kaidan was busy staring at the Beacon while Shepard and Ash talked. Juno stood off to one side with Kurt and Sam, watching Kaidan curiously. Something seemed wrong, Kaidan looked to be struggling against something pulling him towards the Beacon. His feet began to lift from the floor, his eyes going blank.

" **Kaidan!** " Juno called, running forward.

She was beat to the punch by Shepard, who threw Kaidan out of the way and was pulled up into the field of the Beacon. He seemed to be convulsing, sheer terror and agony etched into his fine features.

"Shepard..." she breathed, trying to pull herself from Kaidan's grasp and drag Shepard away.

"There's nothing you can do. If you go up there it'll get you too."

A shockwave pulsed from the Beacon, blowing it to pieces and throwing Shepard to the side. He fell to the ground, his face placid and calm, eyes twitching beneath their lids.

_'Commander?'_

Kaidan looked up, surprised, before pressing a finger to the com transmitter on the side of his helmet.

"Joker? What's up?"

_'Kaidan? Where's Shepard? There's been com disruption, I've been hailing for like twenty minutes.'_

Kaidan sighed, "We're gonna need pickup Joker. Shepard's out cold and we've got Nihlus. Did you pick up Jenkins?"

_'Roger, a ground team picked up Jenkins. I'll tell Chakwas to expect you. Shuttle's on the way, Joker out.'_

***

It took longer to get Shepard onto the shuttle than it took for the shuttle to get to them but it wasn't long before Juno, Kurt and Sam saw the _Normandy_ for the first time.

"It's beautiful." Juno breathed, staring out of the small viewport.

"Pride of the Alliance Fleet, a prototype, the only one of her kind flying at the minute. She's a joint venture between Humans and Turians, with a few other races helping out with other small bits." the shuttle pilot informed her, a small hint of pride in his voice. In this case, she could understand his pride; the _Normandy_ was easily twice the size of the _Icarus_ in the flesh and dwarfed their shuttle. It was sleek and painted a plain black and white with red accents. The name plastered along the side in large square letters exuded confidence and military precision. It was hard for anyone in the shuttle to look away.

Juno began to sing lightly under her breath, recalling an old song she used to hear often, "Golden brown texture like sun, lays me down with my mind she runs, throughout the night, no need to fight, never a frown with golden brown. Every time just like the last, on her ship tied to the mast, to distant lands, takes both my hands, never a frown with golden brown."

"What is that?" Kaidan asks, listening closely.

"Oh, uhm, it's an song by The Stranglers - they're a seriously old English band, it's called Golden Brown. I heard it a lot at home."

Kurt nodded, knowing the song, and Kaidan just smiled softly and watched as Shepard stirred.

"What happened?" came his mumbled questioning as he held his head.

"Nothing," Kaidan assured him, "go back to sleep."

And he did. Shepard was out for fifteen hours. In that time Kaidan gave Juno, Kurt and Sam a tour around the entire ship and they met some of the other crew. They ended in the cockpit, where the majority of them stayed for the rest of the trip and talked with the cynical pilot. Kaidan disappeared later on but nobody really paid any attention, they were too busy laughing with Joker and marvelling at the view from the screens. When Joker asked why she found it so amazing Juno simply answered that she'd never really noticed it before. In all truth, back on earth, she really hadn't considered space and what could be out there.

***

As pale lilac spatial clouds obscured the view from the screens, footsteps sounded behind the pilots chair where a small group crowded.

"I see you missed me." Shepard's voice was dry as he grinned down at Joker, resting a hand on the back of his Pilot's chair.

"Commander, just in time. 'Was about to bring us in to the Citadel, see the taxpayer's money at work."

The Citadel... Juno still hadn't decided if her small squad would jump ship yet. It was a hard decision for her; in the short time she had been on the Normandy she had found herself slotting into the spacefaring community of another world like she had always been there, like she belonged. She had never met a person quite like Joker before, and even the Commander and Kaidan were starting to rub off on her. She was beginning to like the fact that Kaidan seemed quite reserved and Shepard just acted like a kid on crack.

Finally voicing another question that had been bothering her, Juno asked, "Does crack still exist?"

Shepard raised his eyebrow, "I don't think so... what brought that up?"

"Oh, I was just thinking that you're like a teenager on crack. You know, really... hyper... and... stuff..." she peterd off as Shepard glared, a glint in his eye that she couldn't identify.

"I'd say he's more a teenage boy crossed with a Krogan." Joker chipped in, his hand crossing the Aerogel display effortlessly as he looked up at Shepard and winked.

The awkward environment that had formed shattered like glass as Shepard giggled - yes, **giggled** \- before nodding, "So you all think I'm like a teenage boy, huh?"

actually angry. The last thing anyone needed was for him to be in a bad mood, especially Juno and her crew.

"I was only messing with you, by the way." he said quickly to Juno, laughing.

She nodded before glancing out of the screens, watching as the clouds dispersed slowly, revealing a huge structure. It looked almost like a giant flower, five arms extending into space, branching off from an inner circle. The arms were huge, easily the size of the largest cities back home, and Juno once again found it hard to comprehend the size. At least this time she wasn't alone in her amazement.

"Look... At the size... Of that..." Ash muttered.

"The Destiny Ascension. Pride of the Council fleet." Kaidan said quietly, his eyes locked on to the Citadel, a dreamy look plastered on his face.

"That... is ridiculous." Kurt mumbled, his eyes following the pale blue giant that casually passed them by, gliding through space as if it had not a care in the world. Though it probably didn't; nothing could touch a ship that size, what was its biggest weakness was also one of its most prominent strengths. It dwarfed everything else surrounding it.

"Yeah, well, size isn't everything. You need firepower too."

"What's up Joker? Jealous?" Ash laughed, "And besides, look at the size of the guns on that thing."

Joker made a noise that sounded vaguely like _'harumph'_ before sulking into his Aerogel display.

Feeling slightly guilty for Joker, Juno cut in, "Well, 'least the _Normandy's_ cute and slick and stuff. I'd imagine that thing's a bit lumbering..."

Joker laughed and nodded vigorously, "Exactly!"

Shepard sat in a corner, watching his people bicker, before muttering, "You guys are like a married couple. I'm going on YouTube."

Juno took a second to be shocked at Shepard's knowledge of YouTube before grinning, "What are you watching?"

"Oh, just some old music vid. You probably won't have heard of it."

Juno grinned, "Try me."

"Okay, The Pixies - Debaser." Shepard's grin was smug as he watched Juno.

"I know the one." Juno smiled smugly as Shepard frowned, then grinned again. His expression changed like the weather back in England, sunny one second, pissing down with rain the next. This was going to be hard to get used to... though nothing said she'd have to get used to it yet, she still hadn't decided or had time to talk with Kurt and Sam about jumping ship.

"I. Am. Shocked." Shepard smirked, opening his Omni-Tool and tapping away.

"Citadel Control this is SSV Normandy requesting clearance to dock." Joker spoke, his fingers sliding across the orange interface.

_’Roger Normandy, you are cleared to dock. Passing you over to the Alliance Tower. Have a nice stay.’_

Joker simply grinned while Juno laughed.

_’SSV Normandy this is Alliance Tower. You're cleared to approach, dock in 442.’_

"Roger Alliance Tower. Normandy out."

Shepard watched Juno curiously as she looked around in wonder. He thought about where she might have come from, she didn't tell him when they met. He thought about the fact that she seemed to be enamoured with all of the technology that was commonplace in any spacefaring persons life. Either she hadn't been on her ship long, or there was something she wasn't telling. Shepard was betting on the latter, and he intended to find out what this girl was all about. To do that, he needed to keep her on his crew for a little while. Turning to Juno once more, putting all thoughts about her origins from his mind, he grinned.

"Welcome to the Citadel."


	8. The Citadel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Citadel: Part 1 of 2.

"Welcome to the Citadel."

"This place is insane…" Juno breathed, staring at her new environment. Shepard had dragged her, Kurt, Sam, Kaidan and Ash along to a hearing with the Human ambassador in a place called The Presidium. Apparently there was some kind of trial going on to do with the Turians, Nihlus and Saren. Juno wasn't really paying attention, she was too busy looking around the Presidium and marvelling at the size of it. The ceiling seemed to extend forever into a continuously looping river with trees either side of it. It reminded Juno of a brook back home where she used to fish as a child, before she joined the army.

"Ah, Shepard. I see you brought half of you crew with you. And some freeloaders…"

Juno glared at the Ambassador – his name was Undula, Udifa, Udina-na-na… something like that. She wasn't a freeloader, in actual fact she was anything but. If she had to be given a label during her time with Shepard she would prefer it to be something like Support Squad Leader… or something like that, something with a bit of flair.

Shepard and Umdumdum were still talking, "No, just the ground team from Eden Prime in case you had any questions."

"I assume the report was accurate…" the Ambassador questioned, his tone arrogant.

Shepard nodded, moving to speak but Umdumdum cut him off, "In that case there was no need."

Shepard sighed and nodded as the Ambassador kept on talking, "Very well, the hearing starts soon. I suggest you don't bring your entire squad…"

"And that's why I hate politics." Ash mumbled, fingering her pistol which rested on her hip. Juno was feeling tetchy around all of the starched collar bureaucrats, she felt much the same as the Chief where politics were concerned, she hated them.

"Yeah, you're not the only one. I'm the guy who has to play house with these ass-butt-trumpets."

There was a little laughter from the crew before Shepard ordered them all to move out, the entire group was going up to the trial but the only ones actually facing the Council would be Shepard, Kaidan and Ashley. The last thing they needed was more political blowback because Shepard filled the Council Chamber with 'freeloaders'. Shepard continued to joke about that all the way to the trial, he only stopped laughing when he spotted two Turians and a human having a fairly heated argument.

"Saren's hiding something! Give me more time! Stall them!"

Blue face paint, white plates, blue armour, a pistol strapped to his hip. Juno was shocked to see the fairly familiar face of Garrus Vakarian. Stood beside him was his human partner, Ian Shaw.

 _God. Damn. It. We've only been here two minutes and we're already running into them!_ Juno growled quietly to herself, waiting for the rest of her team to realise exactly what - or who - they were looking at. When they did their expressions mirrored hers; irritated and slightly shocked. It seemed that they were having trouble avoiding the people they should be staying away from... which sucked really bad.

Juno's Omni-Tool bleeped and she looked down, opening the interface to see a small envelope floating in the corner of the 'screen'. She tapped it and a message appeared on screen. It summed up her thoughts perfectly.

'What the **hell** are we gonna do?'

Juno sighed, typing a reply to Kurt before turning her ear back to the argument between the Turians.

"Stall the Council? Don't be ridiculous. Your investigation is over, detectives." The Turian with the red plates and white face pain walks away, leaving Vakrian and Shaw stood in a stunned silence.

Shepard lead the motley group towards Vakarian and instantly Juno began to feel strange, like something was weighing down on her. Perhaps it was the stress of the past few days, the idea she was in space, the idea that she'd already met most of the people she was supposed to avoid, or maybe just the fact that she hadn't had any sack time since the stupid Batarians attacked the **stupid** _Icarus_ and tried to fire a _**stupid**_ fucking frocket launcher at them.

_Breathe Juno, the last thing you need to be doing is freaking out with all these people here._

Garrus turns around and Juno gets her first proper look at their Turian adversary. He was around seven foot tall and pretty damn scary. If anything though, he looked exasperated... though that could have been Juno's imagination, the plates were pretty damn hard to read.

"Commander Shepard. Garrus Vakarian. Me and my partner were leading the investigation into Saren."

Ian turned around and introduced himself, "Ian Shaw." His face twitched slightly, his expression going blank. Shepard didn't seem to notice, none of the group seemed to notice other than Juno. It was strange but she pushed it out of her mind as his expression cleared and he looked around, worried.

"Who was that?" Shepard asked, gesturing to the retreating Turian.

"Executor Pallin. Our boss." Shaw said, a grim look on his face.

"Man, he's a dick." Shepard smirked before looking back to Vakarian and Shaw, "Sounds like you really want to take Saren down, you were fighting pretty hard with Pallin."

The Turian nodded, "I don't trust Saren. Something about him rubs me the wrong way."

Shaw nodded, muttering, "Got that right."

All eyes turned to him and he shrugged, flushing lightly under all the stares, "Well... he is a bit of a bastard."

 _Of all the things he could have said about Saren, he said that? Seriously? And what's going on with his accent, he sounds English but everybody's been American so far._ Juno's internal monologuing was cut off by Shepard laughing.

"Got that right. Well, it's nice to see we're all on the same page. That way it shouldn't be such a problem when I shotgun him in the face." Shepard had a grim smirk plastered right across his face and Shaw was frowning. Vakarian looked decidedly happy with Shepard's most recent comment, eh maybe Shepard'll let the Turian get a shot in first.

That thought made Juno smile as Garrus spoke up, his expression falling a little judging by the movement in his mandibles, "It hardly matters anyway. He's a Spectre, everything he touches is classified. We can't find any evidence."

Shepard nodded and Juno sighed, this was going to be a hard job. Kaidan spoke up and broke the awkward silence that had fallen, "I think the Council's ready for us Commander."

Ah, Kaidan. Ever the professional. Juno decided she really needed to do something about that stick up his ass on missions.

"Good luck, Shepard." Vakarian called as Shep walked away with Kaidan and Ashley flanking him.

"Maybe they'll listen to you." Shaw called, causing his Turian friend to mutter about being about to say that. Ian smirked and shrugged before looking back over to Juno and her squad.

"So what are you guys doing with Shepard. You don't seem like part of his crew." Shaw had a nervous anticipation pasted clearly over his face, which Juno found strange but put to the back of her mind for future reference. She wasn't sure about trusting Vakarian and Shaw with the truth. Oddly enough, something about Shaw's face lit a spark of recognition in her mind, she just couldn't place it.

"We joined up on Eden Prime. Our ship got attacked by Batarian slavers, we got out in the shuttle. There were four of us but the Geth got Steven." Juno took a second to mourn the man she lost under her command. She'd never lost a man before, she'd never been in command before. Sure, out in the field she'd been taught the duties of the officers just in case any of them died on patrol but she had never actually had the full rank to make decisions and the like. She was only a Sergeant and the Lieutenant always took the tough stuff.

"I'm sorry." Vakarian said, inclining his head slightly for a second, "Since Shepard left you behind I'm assuming that you're not allowed in the hearing because you're not Alliance."

"Hmmm, something like that." Juno muttered, "The Ambassador made it clear that he didn't want us there."

"Udina? He's a dick." Ian and Vakarian muttered in sync, laughing afterwards. It was odd for Juno to see their dynamics, you only got so much about a person from dossiers and pictures. You could tell much more about a person by meeting them face to face, even just once. Ian and Garrus were clearly close, they seemed like brothers. It reminded her of her relationship with the boys in the field; initially they were close because they **had** to be, but then it changed and they became the closest of friends.

"We're going to finish our investigation, if you wanted you could lend a hand?" Shaw watched Juno and her crew as they looked between eachother. The looks passing suggested that they were suspicious, Shaw had no idea why but he was suspicious too. Why was this extra little squad here. They didn't belong, they didn't know it yet but they were going to mess things up more than he was. But they were Shaw's personal thoughts, and he was free to think them because as far as he knew nobody here could read minds. Which was a good thing.

***

"So we're just going to blast in there while you sneak up with all our guns?"

Shaw nodded, "Yeah, that's pretty much it."

Juno sighed, "Okay, let's do this."

Shaw cracked the door slowly and followed Vakarian, sneaking in and hiding behind a counter. Through the gap Juno could clearly see the doctor they were talking about, Doctor Michel, being held at gunpoint. Her instinct to save the woman tried to take over but she made herself wait; they had a plan and she had to stick to it. When the Turian and Shaw were in position she opened the door and stepped in. She was unarmed and held up her hands as soon as she saw the gun, just like they'd planned.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?"

"I-I came to see Michel. I need help."

There was still blood on her armour enough from crouching near Steven's body on Eden Prime for it to be convincing. The men held their guns back to Michel.

"If you turn around and pretend you never saw this, we'll let you go."

Juno nodded, her expression meek. "I'm going."

That was the signal they'd agreed upon, Juno would announce she was leaving and then Garrus would pop up and shoot the person holding Michel hostage, while Ian tossed Juno her guns. Then Kurt and Sam would bust in and take out everybody else. Hopefully, some time during this, Michel would take cover and Shepard would turn up. Despite the group having superior numbers, Juno wasn't confident. She'd never fought with these people before. She was used to fighting in confined spaces, house to house in Afghanistan, but she had her team with her then. She knew all of their weakness' and strengths but this lot were new to her. Except Sam and Kurt, obviously. But she still hadn't figured them out totally yet.

Juno plucked her shotgun out of the air as Vakarian took his shot, the person holding Doctor Michel dropped to the floor, blood pooling around him. Perhaps it was a bad idea to be starting a firefight in the Med Clinic, but Juno didn't really care. According to Vakarian and Shaw, the good Doctor had vital information that would help bring Saren down. Surely that was worth a few holes in the walls.

Whipping around, Juno vaulted the barrier and fired her shotgun into the nearest person not on her side.

"Jesus, that's messy." Sam was cringing as he fired his assault rifle at the guys hiding behind crates at the back of the room.

"Looks like we're bringing you out of your shell a bit, huh Sam?" Juno called over the cacophony of gunfire. It was actually quite fun. The idea that she would more than likely piss off the Ambassador with this was even better, he needed someone to show him he wasn't actually all that important.

Sam simply laughed in reply to her comment and continued to take people down. There were originally about six 'bad guys' but now there were three left. Juno ran to the back of the room, taking cover behind a bed. She leaned over and fired another round from her shotgun, catching a guy in the shoulder and blowing his arm off. There was no way to describe the horror her weapon was causing, the fact that it didn't actually affect her was probably a bad thing.

Kurt fired his own shotgun at the last guy and he fell to the floor in two separate pieces, causing Juno to cringe.

"Well, I think we did quite well there." Vakarian said, walking over to Doctor Michel.

"Nice shot, Detective." Juno called, walking back over to where Sam stood and clapping him on the shoulder.

"Call me Garrus."

Juno nodded and wandered over to the Doctor. Crouching down beside her she began to comfort her, trying to coax the information they needed before Shepard found out about their hell raising. The last thing Juno needed was to get chewed out for doing all this and not get any results.

"What happened here?" and speak of the devil. Shepard walked into the Med Clinic and took in the blood all over the walls, the eviscerated bodies laying on the floor, the shotguns laying beside Kurt and Juno.

"We... Uh... We helped the Detectives get their lead." Juno gestured to Michel.

Shepard shrugged, "Good job, nice bit of carnage here."

Juno laughed, "You can blame Ian for letting me have the shotgun."

Shepard laughed and crouched beside her, "What have you found so far."

Juno sighed, "Nothing. She's still traumatised. I say we get her somewhere else and ask her then."

"No, no. I'm fine." the thick accent of the Doctor surprised Juno, "I'm fine here. The mercenaries. They worked for Fist. He sent them to shut me up. Stop me telling you about the Quarian. She came in a couple of days ago and asked where she could find the Shadow Broker. I pointed her to Fist, he's the Shadow Broker's liaison on the Citadel... at least he was. He betrayed the Shadow Broker. Word is he's hired a Krogan to kill Fist."

Shepard nodded, his expression unreadable, "Yeah, we met him."

Garrus chipped in to the conversation, "Fist would have to be pretty stupid to betray the Shadow Broker. Either that or someone's offered him something better."

Juno realised that the whole time Ian had just been sat there listening, tentatively. It seemed like he was waiting for someone to figure something out before he had to tell them. What could he know that Shepard didn't. Had he seen Fist before? Had he already got this information, followed it up?

Michel nodded, "Fist is working for the Turian, Saren. The Quarian said she had evidence that would prove Saren was involved in Eden Prime."

" **That's it!** " Shepard grinned, thanking Doctor Michel before standing. Juno continued to talk to Michel, making sure she was alright before standing beside Shepard. While she was talking to Michel, Shepard had been talking to Garrus and Ian. It seemed that they would be joining the crew, yet another group of 'freeloaders'. Umdumdum would, no doubt, be overjoyed when they rocked up to the Presidium with two **more** people in the crew.

"What now, Shep?" Juno asked.

"Are you staying with me?"

Juno was confused by the question. When Shepard clarified, she almost wished she hadn't asked. It was time to make a snap decision; did she stay with Shepard and save a galaxy she didn't even belong in, or did she leave and try to find a way home?

She looked around the group and made up her mind, "So, what are we doing?"

Shepard smiled, "Good to have you on the team. We need to find that Krogan, it sounds like he could be helpful."

Juno nodded in agreement, as did everybody else. Garrus spoke up, "He should be down in CSec." after Shepard's questioning glance he expanded, "Whenever a Krogan comes aboard we bring them in to make sure they're not going to cause any trouble."

Shepard nodded, "To CSec then."

" **Avengers assemble!** " Juno grinned at Kurt and Sam. Ian was staring at her, thoughtful and confused. She had no idea what he was looking at but it made her nervous. Again her mind flicked to the fact that he might know about her and her squad. But she dismissed it, it was impossible. They had only just met, how could he know that they were in the wrong universe?


	9. The Citadel; Echo Alley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Citadel: Part 2 of 2.

The Krogan was even taller and more intimidating than Garrus, he was easily five times the size of Juno. The giant hump on his back and the imposing scars on his face, coupled with his **complete** lack of social skills, made him pretty damn scary. Juno kept her cool, keeping eye contact. That's what you're supposed to do when confronted by a wild animal, keep eye contact and try not to run away screaming. Juno had a feeling that running wouldn't matter with the Krogan, he had a shotgun across a magnetic strip on his back, a pistol on his hip and an assault rifle over his shoulder.

"We have a saying in my culture, seek the enemy of an enemy and you will find a friend."

Shepard grinned, "Welcome aboard, Wrex."

"One thing. When we find Fist, I **will** kill him."

Shepard simply nodded and gestured for everyone to follow him. It was odd that he used military handsigns in general situations where he could easily talk. Either way, everyone formed up on Shepard and followed him from CSec into what Juno discovered was called The Wards. Shepard told the group that there was a little bar there called Chora's Den, not exactly a respectable place but according to Shep they sold good beer. Juno took a second to wonder how Shepard knew before turning her ear back to his makeshift briefing.

"It's the perfect place for Fist to hole up. The bar is a circle in the middle, tables and booths surrounding the outside. There'll be plenty of cover for his guys and not much for us. Garrus, Ian, Kurt, I see you have Sniper rifles; I want you to find some cover near the door and provide Sniper support. Wrex, Juno; break out those Shotguns and head in, you guys'll be the assault squad. I want shock and awe, use the element of surprise. Ash, Sam, you guys are on me; we'll provide covering fire for Juno and Wrex. Kaidan; I want you to pour it on 'em with your Biotics, don't give them time to stand up. Stick to your strengths, keep in cover and we'll be alright."

Juno grinned, Shepard was a good leader. He was a brilliant tactician and he could tell people's strengths at first glance. That would be helpful when it came to the crunch, and he seemed to want to keep everyone safe. He wasn't reckless, he planned ahead. From what Juno could tell, he was damn good at his job. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing to be under his command.

She turned to her small squad, "Alright boys, you heard the man. Don't do anything stupid, I don't want to be sending the letters home." It was an old World War Two tradition, the CO sent the letters home to family telling them that their sons had died bravely in combat serving their country on some secret mission somewhere nobody had ever heard of. In actual fact, the truth probably wasn't as noble. Kurt and Sam acknowledged her and split off to make it easier to get into position when they got to their destination, which was looming surprisingly close.

There were no guards outside, it was too quiet. Juno felt that familiar ripple in her stomach that told her she was preparing to fight for her life. Assaulting a club with this much cover wouldn't go well for them, someone would get hurt. Hopefully not badly, and not as many as the enemy, but someone would get hurt somehow. Even if it was just a sprained ankle or something stupid.

Shepard stepped up beside the door and opened his Omni-Tool, running his hack programme while somehow readying his gun. Juno had no idea how he managed it but there he stood, hacking a door and loading an Assault Rifle with one hand. This man was pure miracles in a bucket, it was literally insane how capable he seemed. He brushed off Eden Prime without a scratch, despite being thrown around like a ragdoll and he seemed unflappable in the face of strange enemies that made Kurt freeze up like an ice cube. Juno knew little about the Commander, except that he was in the Alliance Military and seemed to know more than he let on in most situations, but she found him to be an interesting source of inspiration and amusement. Looking back, even such a short time after deciding, Juno was glad she had chosen to stay.

"Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight. O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed and let not mine enemies triumph over me." Juno breathed - complete with the southern drawl, watching as the door opened with a swift _'woosh'_. What she saw, she would probably never forget.

Guns. Lots and lots of guns. All pointed right at her face...

"Fuck."

Kaidan stepped up beside her, letting off what seemed to be a Biotic attack - though she couldn't really tell as she had only **read** about these things - which pushed the people back and flung them against things, giving her chance to bring her shotgun to bear on the Mercenaries.

"My goodness-" she fired her shotgun into the crowd, catching a person in the midrif and ripping them in two. She made a mental note to find out whoever made or supplied this shotgun and thank them profusely before continuing her mantra, "and my fortress; my high tower-" another shotgun round, ripping limbs and renting the air with loud bangs. A great red mass charged by her and she realised it was the Krogan, Wrex, rushing the crowd and beating them with his bare hands. She took a second to be awed, watching her new teammate. Ian, Garrus, Shepard and Ash joined the fight around then, taking down targets with a cold proficiency that Juno had never seen.

Kaidan stepped back away from Juno, toward the Commander and better cover. He let off another push before doing something he would never normally attempt; he released a Singularity into the remaining crowd, pulling them into the air and throwing them around with a ball of Dark Energy. Juno had no idea what was going on but she stared on in amazement, still muttering to herself.

"-And my deliverer. My shield, and he in whom I trust; who subdueth my people uder me."

"What is that?" Shepard stepped up beside Juno, who seemed unaware that the fighting had stopped - finished moments ago by a few precision shots by Garrus and Ian from the doorway.

Snapping out of her daze she looked up at him, fear in her mismatched eyes, "I-uh-It's an old mantra from the Second World War, parts of the bible all crammed together. Except that, my high tower... my deliverer... is whoever I want it to be."

Shepard rested a hand on Juno's shoulder, "Are you okay? You seem on edge."

"I'm fine." Juno nodded, regrouping with her squad and stepping into Kurt's open arms again. For some reason, more than ever, she found herself craving human contact. She was feeling less and less like herself every day. She wasn't her usual tough little G.I. Jane self.

Shepard stepped over to Sam, who stood a little way away from Kurt and Juno. He paused for a second, looking at them, before nodding in their direction, "Are they together?"

Sam laughed and shook his head, "No, he's like her brother."

"So... what's up with her?"

Sam watched the Commander carefully, judging his reaction to Juno and her general state before sighing, "I guess she just misses home. We all do."

***

"Do I have to do **everything** myself!"

Fist huddled behind two mounted guns, blind firing around the corner towards where Shepard and his crew crouched. Juno was as close to her old self as she could be, she had decided that she couldn't let her personal state affect the mission; she never would have in her old life, so she would just have to compartmentalise here too.

"Kaidan, prime an Overload. I'll give you covering fire and you knock out one of those guns."

"Why don't we take both at once." Ian said, leaning around cover and firing a few fairly accurate pistol shots at Fist, peppering his cover roughly where his head would be.

When Shepard simply raised his eyebrow, Ian sighed, "I can use an Overload. So can Garrus. You don't work at CSec for two years and learn nothing." he grinned slightly and opened him Omni-Tool. Shepard nodded.

"Okay, prime Overloads. I'll give you cover fire. Ian; you take the left gun, Kaidan; you take the right. In 3... 2... 1..."

Shepard popped around cover, firing a volley of rounds into Fist's solid metal cover as Ian and Kaidan leaned out around him. Both guns were soon smoking, their barrels pointed at the floor. Juno had only fired maybe twenty rounds as covering fire from her Assault Rifle and three rounds from her shotgun. It all seemed to be going well... a little too well. Something was bound to go wrong, it was sod's law.

" _Okay, I surrender, **I surrender.**_ " Shepard stepped up to Fist, who had miraculously acquired a bullet wound to his left leg, and smiled grimly.

"Where's the Quarian? The one Michel sent here?" Shepard's voice was deep and... frightening. Juno hoped she was never in Fist's position; cowering on the floor as Shepard stood over him, a grim smirk plastered across his fine features as he no doubt contemplated blowing Fist to kingdom come.

Fist laughed, "She wanted to meet the Shadow Broker. I set up a meeting."

Wrex stepped forward, "That's impossible, nobody meets the Shadow Broker. Even I was hired through an agent."

"S-she didn't know that. I set up a meeting but Saren's guys will be waiting for her."

Shepard paled, lifting Fist to his feet and throwing him against a wall by the scruff of his neck, "Where's the meeting."

Shepard nodded, dropping Fist and turning away. The rest of the group followed, all except one.

Everyone seemed to turn in unison as a loud bang rent the air. Juno knew what it was before she even looked, so did Shepard by the look on his face; the grim smirk was back as he turned to survey the carnage. Wrex had really done a number on Fist, there seemed to be nothing left of his face. Juno watched as Wrex dropped the body into a pile of it's own blood and mess. It reminded her of a book she once read; it went into real gory details about death and violence. Nothing prepared you for the visual and sensual assault of a dead body; the smell, the feeling that you're looking at a dead body, the gore.

Juno shook her head and muttered, "You could have warned us not to turn around."

Wrex simply stared at her, as if deciding whether he was going to say something. He settled on, "Most humans are weak. I'm beginning to think some of you are an exception."

Ian looked on, a distraught look plastered across his face as Wrex passed him by without even batting an eyelid-thing.

Shepard said nothing, his expression set. He seemed to realise that nothing he would say could really do the situation justice so he settle for, "C'mon, we better go get our Quarian."

As the troop walked out of Chora's Den - which was surprisingly devoid of extra enemies - a melancholy mood seemed to settle on them like a rain cloud. And nothing anyone could do would lift it.

***

The alley was darkened by dim red lighting but a person was clearly visible, standing down near the far end. As Shepard rounded the corner, the person turned. It was clear she was a Quarian from the mask covering her face, her eyes glowing an eerie blue behind it. Juno walked ahead on point, her Assault Rifle raised before her.

"Who are you?" the Quarian called.

"I'm Commander Shepard, we're here to help you."

The Quarian lowered her shotgun and stepped closer, waiting for Shepard to speak again. Shepard opened his mouth but didn't get the chance to say anything as Juno fell to the floor, clutching at her side.

"Mary mother of fucking god jesus that fucking stings." she breathed in a low monotone, her fingers grasped tightly at her side. She fell onto a crate and Kurt stepped up beside her, kneeling down.

"Ow... Ow, **ow, _owwwww!_** Jesus that hurts..." Juno gripped the hole in the side of her armour, hands clutching at the rent as blood began to drip between the plates and her fingers. Kurt stood over her and helped to put pressure on the wound before calling out to Shepard.

"How bad is it, Shep?" Juno asked, her voice growing weak as she grasped Kurt's had over her wound. Shepard looked down at her, his eyes wide.

Pulling something from a pocket in his armour, Shepard moved Kurt's hands and dropped a strange salve onto the wound. Rubbing it in slightly, he placed his spare hand on Juno's cheek. "You're gonna be fine, kid."

Turning to the rest of his crew, Shepard yelled, "Grab the Quarian, we need to get Juno back to the Normandy. Prep frags and Flashbangs. Toss on my mark."

Shepard turned back to Juno, seeing her eyes drift closed. There was nothing he could have done; there was a sniper stationed at the other end of the alley - he was dead now, Garrus had drilled him right through the head, but the damage was done - he had hit Juno before any of them even realised, she was on the ground before they even heard the shot.

"I heard that a couple people down here needed some help."

Shepard's head whirled around to see a group of people stood before him. He recognised them in an instant; after all, they were famous across the galaxy.

"Dead Echo? What are you doing here?"

Juno cracked her eyelid and rolled her eyes at what she saw. It really was turning out to be a trip from hell; first they bump into Shepard and join his crew, then the CSec detective join up, then she got shot, and now Dead Echo shows their face. It was like all of her CO's rotten eggs in one basket - plus a few bullets, thankfully they wouldn't have to blow up the basket. Juno was too tired to figure if she could use this to her advantage, instead she just grumbled through gritted teeth, "Will you stop going googly eyed over eachother and get me the fuck out of here please."

"I'm on it, kid." Shepard hoisted Juno over his shoulder, grabbed Tali's hand and called "Mark."

A blinding light bounced off the metal walls, leaving Shepard's vision a little blurry as he struggled throught the narrow Citadel corridors with Juno over his shoulder. The Council could wait for their data, right now his squad was more important.


End file.
